Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube has become the world's nanny

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 403 posts

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#341

Post by lostlogin »

cjrp wrote: post #287
furyg3 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curation is key and there need to be better tools. I strongly limit my kid's screen time, and was pleasantly surprised by the PBS kids video app (and to some extent the games app). I felt very comfortable leaving her alone with that at the designated screen times, as most programs had at least some educational component... or at least had some generic but positive moral lessons. And (key!) she gets personal choice in…

Could you download episodes of those shows (on Netflix), and then disconnect from the internet?

I’m not sure that most TVs would allow much of that. But disconnecting them from the network seems wise after I saw the amount of connections mine was making (via Pihole).

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#342

Post by takeda »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #59

As a parent, screen time vs no screen time is a fine line that we have to continually renegotiate. Screens can be great, there is so much good information out there that can enrich our lives. I wouldn't go the "no screens ever" route because that's just being a luddite, robbing them of the change to experience, and acquire expertise in, the digital world that they will be interacting with for the rest of their lives.…

> Curating content and setting limits on screen time is your job as a parent in this era. We cannot outsource this responsibility to companies and AIs because there is simply no way an algorithm find the stuff that is just right for your child.

Plus the incentive for YouTube/Google to do it right is not that strong as their goal is to make money first.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#343

Post by simiones »

kefka_p wrote: post #301
simiones wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual findings, as reported in the very link you post: > "We found that YouTube's recommendation algorithm does not lead the vast majority of users down extremist rabbit holes, although it does push users into increasingly narrow ideological ranges of content in what we might call evidence of a (very) mild ideological echo chamber," the academics disclosed in a report for the Brookings Institution. > "We also fi…

“Pulls users slightly to the right” So the indoctrination isn’t obvious? So it’s subtle? That makes it more pernicious, in my eyes. I never said anything about a vast majority. To indoctrinate doesn’t mean convert an entire population, or even a percentage thereof. On the contrary, it refers to a process of teaching a person or group (of any size) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. It doesn’t specify what degre…

My point is this: recommending related videos is not indoctrination, even if the content is political. If I'm watching Shapiro and YT recommends Fox, this is not indoctrination (same as, if I'm watching Young Turks and YT recommends Majority Report, it's not indoctrinating me).

Now, if I'm watching Anime and YT recommends Shapiro, I can agree that's closer to indoctrination. However, if it only happens like 2 times for every 10M watches of anime, and then 1 time for every 10M it's recommending Young Turks, then it's not really a significant force in this area; and it is only pushing slightly to the right - and I believe this is the sort of thing that the study found. So coming back to your first quote:

> So the indoctrination isn’t obvious? So it’s subtle? That makes it more pernicious, in my eyes.

No, that is not what the study found. It found that political recommendations for right-leaning content are slightly more common than those for left-leaning content.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#344

Post by lostlogin »

ryandrake wrote: post #310
alexvoda wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think that treating the problem as screen time is the wrong approach. It is too low resolution. What happens on the screen matters. Many parents end up using screen time as a very blunt tool because we simply lack better tools. But curating content as a family is close to unfeasible because it goes against sponsored algorithmic curation to which others are still exposed and once a kid is socialized they face…

I think "screen time" is this generation's "Dungeons and Dragons" boogeyman. Everyone feels like it's turning kids into zombies or hurting them in some way, but people really aren't articulating how. What's the mechanism, and how did it differ from similar kids entertainment of the past? Is "Algorithmically Generated Spiderman/Frozen Mashup #45501" or "Streamer babbling on about nothing" really that much worse for an…

> Everyone feels like it's turning kids into zombies or hurting them in some way

It didn’t take a lot of My Little Pony before my child’s accent whet from that of a New Zealand child to whatever the accent is that the horses have (Texan?).

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#345

Post by digitallyfree »

Loughla wrote: post #267
icambron wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it is simpler to set time limits and let the kids do what they want. It’s too much management and friction and negotiation otherwise. For now, I’ve done so anyway: games (even dumb ones) are fine but video is only available under special circumstances (e.g. on an airplane). I’m sure even this very coarse line will eventually erode though.

We had the same rule, and modified it to include type of games. Phone games have time limits, unless it's things like Dragonbox, flow free, or other "educational" games (at least games that require some kind of thinking) approved by us beforehand, including minecraft. Because 99.999% of games for children are just absolute trash stuffed full of ads. Any PC game that is age appropriate gets a pass, but only if it's ev…

I'm not a kid now :) but I tinkered a lot with tech as a kid and still do today as an adult.

Most of that came from the fact that I didn't have a lot of the stuff others had - no cable TV, outdated computer, etc. Thus the tinkering came out of necessity and over time I started to like it. That stuff broke constantly and I remember searching for troubleshooting info on school computers to bring home and try.

I did have the Internet though, and soon began exploring Linux, finding ways to make the computer faster, learning to repair secondhand equipment, and so forth. Not having easily accessible entertainment also had the bonus of getting me into other hobbies like writing, drawing, and music which I still do today. The more you do these things, the more you like them - and the satisfaction of making or fixing something is always greater than mindless consumption.

And before you ask - yes, my social life suffered a bit as I couldn't play the games others played, talk about the shows they watched, etc. I knew many other kids who were "good" with tech, but they didn't really have the motivation to tinker as they could easily buy stuff that just worked.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#346

Post by kefka_p »

simiones wrote: post #343
kefka_p wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Pulls users slightly to the right” So the indoctrination isn’t obvious? So it’s subtle? That makes it more pernicious, in my eyes. I never said anything about a vast majority. To indoctrinate doesn’t mean convert an entire population, or even a percentage thereof. On the contrary, it refers to a process of teaching a person or group (of any size) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. It doesn’t specify what degre…

My point is this: recommending related videos is not indoctrination, even if the content is political. If I'm watching Shapiro and YT recommends Fox, this is not indoctrination (same as, if I'm watching Young Turks and YT recommends Majority Report, it's not indoctrinating me). Now, if I'm watching Anime and YT recommends Shapiro, I can agree that's closer to indoctrination. However, if it only happens like 2 times f…

I don’t need to reword the findings to make them support my assertion.

Again those findings: “We also find that, *on average*, the YouTube recommendation algorithm pulls users slightly to the right of the political spectrum”.

The whole “on average” nullifies the notion that occasionally recommending Young Turks to kids watching Anime once in a while somehow makes up for the fact that they push OANN or Newsmax even harder. That’s like saying I took one step forward so you should ignore the two steps I took backward.

Also you are ignoring the implications further down the line. If YouTube pulls neutral to the right, then it likely pushes those already right even further in that direction.

Are you familiar with the concept of network effect?

> So the indoctrination isn’t obvious? So it’s subtle? That makes it more pernicious, in my eyes.

>> No, that is not what the study found

“In my eyes” isn’t analogous to “that’s what the study found”, FYI.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#347

Post by scythe »

dangwhy wrote: post #291
passwordoops wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Curating content and setting limits on screen time is your job as a parent in this era. This, 100%! We're at the point where the tablet is for podcasts, and we can watch instructional videos with a specific topic in mind (e.g. tips on drawing anime characters). And that's it. It's been a month and we saw a noticeable change literally overnight in quality and amount of sleep, quality of conversation, and the child is…

> It's been a month all diets fail after 6 months on average. ppl gain even more weight. you are going have the same results with this screen cap thing because you are using willpower to supress the urge which is still there and isnt going anywhere

>all diets fail after six months on average; ppl regain even more weight

This is not true and is also potentially harmful if people believe it. In reality, weight regain after "cutting" occurs over a period of years and tends to be around 50%; that is, less than the amount of weight lost in the first place. Several meta-analyses have been conducted, e.g.:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240545772...

It's also worth noting that adults under 60 tend to gain weight over time on average, so the actual effect of the intervention versus no intervention may be underestimated by simply treating the baseline as a constant. Losing ten pounds may seem small, but losing ten pounds instead of gaining ten pounds is more significant.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#348

Post by simiones »

kefka_p wrote: post #346
simiones wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is this: recommending related videos is not indoctrination, even if the content is political. If I'm watching Shapiro and YT recommends Fox, this is not indoctrination (same as, if I'm watching Young Turks and YT recommends Majority Report, it's not indoctrinating me). Now, if I'm watching Anime and YT recommends Shapiro, I can agree that's closer to indoctrination. However, if it only happens like 2 times f…

I don’t need to reword the findings to make them support my assertion. Again those findings: “We also find that, *on average*, the YouTube recommendation algorithm pulls users slightly to the right of the political spectrum”. The whole “on average” nullifies the notion that occasionally recommending Young Turks to kids watching Anime once in a while somehow makes up for the fact that they push OANN or Newsmax even ha…

> The whole “on average” nullifies your assertion that they recommend Young Turks to kids watching Anime as much as they do OANN or Newsmax.

I didn't say that they do it "as much", I specifically suggested they may do it half as often. But, per the study, they DO do it - otherwise, this would not have been a "slight" bias, it would have been a whopping huge bias.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#349

Post by HlessClaudesman »

lostlogin wrote: post #339
kibwen wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And now you have become an antagonist. A rule maker to be subverted. Good, then you can teach them to subvert you productively. Keep the tablet locked down, but put an unlocked Linux machine in the house and tell them they can watch whatever they want in Firefox. Once they've done that, make them launch Firefox from the command line. Once that's mastered, make them connect to the wifi manually. Then make them start…

I’m not sure that slicing yourself up assembling a machine is part of computer literacy. If job interviews are anything to go by, computer literacy is a familiarity with trash apps like Teams.

Having their concentration broken 100 times an hour with surprise egg content will prepare them well for a life on Teams.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#350

Post by Encrust6221 »

scotty79 wrote: post #129
i67vw3 wrote: post #55

Two of my sisters have in total 3 kids (4 to 6 years old) and all three of them need to watch youtube videos while eating. Just few days back, my sister had a 'gathering' to announce her 2nd child (making it total 4 kids combined) and the 3rd kid needed to watch few youtube videos (usually they are of other kids playing or doing some stuff) to eat his dinner, which I found quite odd. This thing is not only related to…

Eating is immensly boring and I hated it as a kid. I wish I had something to distract myself from the boredom of eating. Despite not having anything like that as a child I now, at 43, eat all my meals in front of a computer while gaming or watching or reading something.

That's why the have (had?) all that fun stuff on the back of the cereal box. Or the morning paper. It's not a new phenomenon that we strive to fill our idle time with some kind of stimulation.
Post reply on HN