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YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

bbc.com

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Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#171

Post by zeckalpha »

james-skemp wrote: post #83
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…

Whew. I was afraid it was going to link to Super Simple Songs. For what it's worth, we found https://www.youtube.com/user/SuperSimpleSongs via the Khan Academy Kids app. They have select videos (from what we've seen) from this particular creator that they break up into the app and make responsive. So for example they may play a bit of 'Do you know the muffin man,' then pause it and ask the child to tap on the ___. Or…

We’ve been happy with Super Simple Songs, and they play on Echo, Apple Music, too, for a less visually stimulating experience.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#172

Post by diplodocusaur »

betwixthewires wrote: post #59

Youtube is a vapid wasteland. Is there interesting stuff? Sure. But it won't be recommended to you. And that's what the service really is, a recommendation engine. If there was no algorithm, just a video host, youtube would be much better.

It used to be that you could search anything and you would find some related videos plus some random stuff people submitted or related through the description.

Now, no matter what you search: it limits you to the most popular results, you see almost no random video uploads even after using filters, plus extra results unrelated to your search that YouTube will insist you watch even if it is unrelated to your original search.

Truly lacking.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#173

Post by charcircuit »

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #46
drewcon wrote: post #21

Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…

The people at Google/Youtube really make it hard for quality content to succeed most of the time and their beloved algorithms mostly just boil down to "If a person clicks X, bombard them with as much things as close to X as possible from now on". (Also their obsession with "engagement" which translates to outrage, but I hope this is less relevant in Youtube Kids...) The danger for kids also stems from this in my opin…

>really make it hard for quality content to succeed

It's the opposite. Quality content goes viral where bad content will stop getting recommended to people.

>Cheap and almost copied content gets rewarded the most

What gets rewarded the most is entertaining videos. YouTube doesn't care if that video took 10 minutes to make or 10 months. It just sees how good the video is at entertaining people.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#175

Post by Clewza313 »

dylan604 wrote: post #94
spicybright wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids should only be able to view content vetted by a human. Full stop. Too bad it's never going to happen.

Historically, that human was called a parent. Parents today have no chance at the on-slaught of content and the delivery mechanisms for it. When I was a kid, there were 3 networks with a handful of UHF channels. Cartoons only ran on Saturday morning, most channels went off the air at midnight, and the TV censors were much more strict with would could be on the air. My parents had it easy. When I became a parent, the…

Ehh, it's not quite that unidimensional. Kids also used to roam freely around the neighborhood, and find the stash of porn mags in the local hobo camp.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#176

Post by _0ffh »

dghughes wrote: post #169
ripply wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that its basically impossible for Youtube to recommend me anything outside the bubble it has assigned me. I end up using guest accounts to find new content but even that doesn't work too well (the guest account also ends up in its own bubble) and generally only recommends the most popular videos in a region so I even switch regions sometimes.

And lord help you if you accidentally click on some drivel that's suggested. It'll take years of ignoring it before it and similar videos are no longer suggested.

I liberally use the "Not interested" and "Don't recommend channel" options in the menu. Works okay for me.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#177

Post by WalterBright »

drewcon wrote: post #21

Can confirm. There is a strain of video (below) on there that is just like perceptual candy to kids. And there are LOADS of these videos in slightly different versions. My own anecdote: Our 2 year old found these videos (3 years ago): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7IsNFDtG4U&list=PLHZrFxrJbt... At first we were like "seems fine, colors and shapes...keeps him engaged". After a month or two he could just stare slack…

My opinion on this isn't popular. One time I was discussing Sesame Street with a friend who said how great it was at teaching kids - his kid knew the alphabet when entering school.

I asked how often his kid watched SS. With a back of envelope calculation, I pointed out that it took SS several hundred hours to teach his kid the alphabet. I.e. it was the most inefficient, time-consuming teaching method ever devised.

(I was taught the alphabet in first grade by singing the alphabet song. This was before SS.)

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#178

Post by tyree731 »

charcircuit wrote: post #173
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people at Google/Youtube really make it hard for quality content to succeed most of the time and their beloved algorithms mostly just boil down to "If a person clicks X, bombard them with as much things as close to X as possible from now on". (Also their obsession with "engagement" which translates to outrage, but I hope this is less relevant in Youtube Kids...) The danger for kids also stems from this in my opin…

>really make it hard for quality content to succeed It's the opposite. Quality content goes viral where bad content will stop getting recommended to people. >Cheap and almost copied content gets rewarded the most What gets rewarded the most is entertaining videos. YouTube doesn't care if that video took 10 minutes to make or 10 months. It just sees how good the video is at entertaining people.

You said it yourself, it isn’t quality content that gets rewarded, it’s entertaining content or, more specifically, content that gets you engaged. So it isn’t the opposite, it’s their point exactly.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#179

Post by gilmore606 »

nerdponx wrote: post #162
vkou wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes me think that once you've memorized all the narrative and visual tropes of western media, your bog standard reality TV is probably as intellectually engaging as videos like these. As someone who can't help but look for those narrative and visual tropes, I can indeed confirm that the bog standard reality TV show, and the vast majority of non-reality TV shows are about this intellectually un-engaging.

I also wonder if it's somehow specifically engineered to keep your attention. The alternating yellow and black lines specifically seemed like a weird feature, and it made me wonder if the whole thing wasn't somehow calibrated, rather than low-effort and arbitrary.

It's very common for multiple version of these videos to be uploaded with only aesthetic differences, presumably for the next round of engagement optimization.

Re: YouTube Kids a “vapid wasteland” say US lawmakers

#180

Post by charcircuit »

basch wrote: post #97
2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people at Google/Youtube really make it hard for quality content to succeed most of the time and their beloved algorithms mostly just boil down to "If a person clicks X, bombard them with as much things as close to X as possible from now on". (Also their obsession with "engagement" which translates to outrage, but I hope this is less relevant in Youtube Kids...) The danger for kids also stems from this in my opin…

All "customized for you"/"things youll like" algorithms are more about trapping you in a frozen past than expanding your horizons. Everyone together trains the algo what "more of the same looks like" and thats what it regurgitates. Every time I read a marketing copy about AI, that's what I think of first, is that someone literally designed a new mouse trap. https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7…

It's not though. For example I used to be in hobby X, so I watched a lot of X based videos. As I fell out of the hobby I stopped watching X videos, so Youtube stopped recommending them to me unless it thinks there is a REALLY good X based video it thinks I would like.

YouTube also lets you easily add to your interests by directly searching for and watching videos about them. There is also the slow way where you have interest X and YouTube recommends you a video about Y since it noticed that it preformed well for other people interested in X.

I would never consider YouTube as trapping me as a frozen past as what kinds of videos it recommends are constantly changing as my interests in real life change.

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