YouTube has become the world's nanny

Oh, I didn't realize CoComelon was that popular, much less top-grossing YouTube channel in America. Our older kid (3.5yo now) has been listening to and occasionally watching their videos, which we picked just because - unlike most others we could find - they weren't weird or disturbing.

We obviously don't let our kid listen to, or watch, those music videos on YouTube. That would be crazy! We use YouTube only as a content discovery mechanism, and if the kids get to see any of it, it's under our experienced supervision[0]. Normally, we identify quality songs and videos[1], and then use youtube-dl (yt-dlp these days) to create an offline-playable, ad-free copy (usually with a pass through Audacity or ffmpeg to fix quality issues and strip out channel jingles, baked-in ads, and other annoyances). We then put those songs and videos on a spare phone that's not connected to the Internet, and use that for music and occasional screen time.

I honestly can't imagine doing it any other way. Yes, maybe the yt-dlp way isn't the most kosher, but there isn't an option I know of that I could pay for that doesn't have ads, questionable content and/or randomly risky autoplay.

(Relevant context: we're in Poland, but we're exposing our kids to ~50/50 mix of English and Polish songs so they're being constantly exposed to both languages.)

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[0] - I can't stress this enough: giving YouTube to small children requires constant monitoring of a person who understands how it works. For example, the other day we left our daughter with her grandpa and allowed him to play her music videos from his phone. Half an hour later, we had to carefully explain to him, that just because the video that just finished playing had Peppa the Pig on it, doesn't mean that the disco rap song on that video, praising sexual conquest and drug abuse, is suddenly OK for a 3.5 y.o.

[1] - Again, you really need to watch a given video yourself first to be sure it's OK for the kids. The first time we exposed our kid to music videos, there was that one song about a fox we played, that seemed all fine until we reached a scene featuring said fox having a shotgun pressed to its head, begging for life to the farmer that caught it. That was the first and the last time I didn't watch the video end-to-end before showing it to my kid.

Putting aside the morality of it, I wish we could study a case where twins are raised differently:

1. one where youtube (or any form of media under the sun) is part of daily life,

2. and another where youtube (and any alternative image/video/audio/social media) is completely removed.

Really what I'm asking for is the 21st century version of the identical twin study: https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/identical-twins-raised-in-di...

I wonder how different their dispositions would be.

Even on a much smaller scale, the algorithm is incentivised to radicalise you. A few years ago I would watch videos of helicopters with my 4-5 year old son because he loved helicopters and enjoyed watching them lift things, cut trees, put our fires, etc, etc.

Then the suggested videos started including helicopter crash compilations and he was super keen to see those and lost interest in the more "vanilla" helicopter videos. That was the end of that avenue of entertainment and it's only now he's 11-12 that he's getting some limited access to youtube again.

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Because a child doesn't know when to stop.

As an adult, I can always feel the pull of real life. If I keep watching YouTube or playing video games I know it's going to impact my job, wife, kid, etc. Some adults aren't even that good at regulating this, but I think kids are, on average, way worse about it. Many don't know real consequences or regrets for failing to manage their time.

Although I'll admit I do agree with your comment in the sense that I think I should stop using YouTube entirely. People are discussing how it can really mess with a kid's brain, and I don't feel like I'm immune as an adult. Yes, I have more discipline than a child, but this feels like it can be a cheap acknowledgement made as a rationalization, like a chainsmoker saying his lungs are stronger than a kid's, or an alcoholic saying the same of their liver.