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YouTube has become the world's nanny

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Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#361

Post by Eupraxias »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #186
quickthrower2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And/or be “the bad guy” who implements rules and limits

Be the bad guy. As a parent, you're not your kids beast friend. You shouldn't be. You should be setting examples and teaching them to be good, upstanding, reasonable adults. This involves telling them no and setting boundaries. Fair, firm and consistent.

Agreed - though I would add rationally empathic.

I've found that if I follow-up, immediately, with an understanding of my child's perspective, they are more on-board with what I am modeling. Then, it's not just about me being the authority, but me demonstrating why I have 'a better idea'.

It makes it almost effortless to be fair, firm, and consistent, and was the one thing missing from my own rather draconian childhood.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#362

Post by browningstreet »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #317
browningstreet wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that "screens after N pm" worked well for us. It created a zone where there was no consideration, expectation, or backsliding onto screens. We also kept a VERY consistent bedtime, so that "N pm" to just before bedtime rituals timeblocked screens. If you get on a screen at 4pm it can be hard to suggest putting the screen down to go outside or do something else.

Was that a "no screens after N pm" or a "screens only between N pm and bedtime" rule? I can imagine the latter working well, but we never tried because we're worried about screen exposure close to bed time causing sleep issues (blue light, but also because content on screens seems to excite and energize kids somewhat) - we're already having way too much problem getting kids to sleep on a sensible schedule.

The latter -- and getting to sleep on a regular schedule wasn't really a challenge in my situation. We did consistently start it at a certain hour, though.. so it would be, say, 7pm to 830pm and then start the bedtime rituals.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#363

Post by scythe »

dangwhy wrote: post #354
scythe wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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..…

> 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. Interesting. Perhaps I missed it, I am not seeing that claim in the link you posted in the comment.

It's shown most prominently in in Figure 4, which tracks post-weight-loss outcomes to 160 weeks (about three years). Sorry if it's not showing, I'm afraid sometimes I'm not sure what's open access anymore, since the journals have all done their best to make institutional logins automatic and invisible.

Practically all studies and reviews on the topic emphasize the large individual variability in outcomes. One in six Americans who has ever been overweight or obese loses at least 10 kilograms and keeps it off for at least a year, for example:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo201094

That study tracks a sample of adults in the general population, not a group assigned to diet. But evidently a significant fraction of people find success on their own. Most studies on the subject emphasizes substantial individual variability. Furthermore, a strong predictor of long-term weight-loss maintenance is just the initial weight lost:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijcp.12300

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/5/579/4737391

and another one is self-monitoring:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2147/CIA.S25389

In another study, around 30% did not experience significant regain:

https://bpsmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1303...

The notion that "all diets fail" seems to be perpetuated by a few unscrupulous journalists seeking clicks and social media slacktivists doing the same. It's not true, it's not helpful, and it's not defensible.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#364

Post by somenameforme »

superkuh wrote: post #286
somenameforme wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's one huge difference. TV gets boring, fast. The only time it would remain remotely entertaining was Saturday morning. And even that would get boring relatively quickly. And so you end up turning to other things to entertain yourself, or just be bored. Both of which are probably much better for one's development. YouTube can probably provide entertainment to a child for an arbitrary length of time, on d…

What? Youtube is exactly like television. The only significant difference is that it includes a comment section where people can interact. I don't think that makes it worse. And it is certainly not analogous to drugs. Trying to compare the stimuli of looking at a screen is entirely different from taking drugs that bypass your senses completely to hijack the neuronal populations which determine the salience and motiva…

Just because an activity has a similar means of interacting doesn't mean it's the same, or even really comparable. Doomscrolling and reading a good book are both just "reading." But of course the consequences and benefits of each are quite different.

YouTube is millions of videos available on demand, instantly, across virtually any topic imaginable - with lots of high quality content available. And it's fueled by an algorithm designed to maximize "engagement", which is of course little more than a euphemism for addiction. That's quite different than TV which has a micro-sized selection of time-slotted, generally poor quality media, generally repeating on intermittent loops, that the user has to manually tune into to.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#366

Post by basch »

alxmng wrote: post #104
robertlagrant wrote: post #100

I physically removed our only television from the lounge to behind some furniture because our eldest (who was 6) was behaving more and more like a drug addict: alternating wheedling, begging, pleading, shouting, to get television. Once I did that, and he saw it really wasn't an option, he changed quite quickly - after around 3 months - and we have it back now, although there's no screen time except weekends (or if so…

But do you watch YouTube or use screens around him? That's my problem with the advice to limit screen time. Why should I be telling my child not to do something that everyone around him is doing?

I don't watch the next suggested video after my video plays.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#367

Post by HTTP418 »

yamtaddle wrote: post #321
phatfish wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torrent the shows you want her to see and setup Jellyfin server. I run one on a Xeon SOC from 2016, but i would be surprised if a Raspberry Pi 4 couldn't handle the transcoding. Install Jellyfin app on a tablet, you just built a curated version of Netflix.

You really do have to do this if you want your kids to be able to pick what they're watching without you right there all the time. If only all these video services would just let parents add content to allow-lists for kids' accounts. But no. It's literally all we need , but they won't do it. [EDIT] Incidentally, Jellyfin doesn't have an allow-list, either. You have to put kids' content in a separate library. They hav…

There is an easy solution to this. Make 2 folders. One with stuff for you, one for stuff for kids. Make an account for the kids that can only see kids folder. Make an account for yourself that can see BOTH folders. Isn't stuff like this normal for plex/jellyfin/kodi? Before these media servers I used to organize everything based on genre and if I liked the video or not (watch using vlc)

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#368

Post by basch »

floren wrote: post #351
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #147

YouTube is actively harmful to children, it’s full of crap content, endless ads and the algorithm takes you to the darkest pits in no time at all. You like paw patrol? How about some videos of the pups killing each other? And kids love candy (brain candy) even if it is of no nutritional value - at this age they don’t know better. We found that no amount of supervision or curation by adults keeps the child completely…

Having caught some Paw Patrol, I don't even know that kids should be watching genuine Paw Patrol. It's just so damn frenetic... Maybe I'm an old man yelling at clouds, but I feel that something slower-paced like Mr Rogers has to be better for you, right?

There's a TV section. https://www.lucieslist.com/guides/screen-time-kids-research/...

It's kind of funny that MTV brought about a collective panic with regard to the content kids were exposed to, but looking back, it and Americas Funniest Home Videos were the start of today's endless algorithmic hellholes. MTV was an endless stream of narratively disconnected images largely detached from the audio. AFV was an endless stream of people falling and getting pranked.

From the founder of buzzfeed: That scrambling of cultural content was starting to happen in the mid-1980s, when Jameson was writing. Peretti's favorite example of this phenomenon is MTV. Whereas variety shows and televised concerts in the 1960s and 70s provided context and structure to the music they presented, MTV instead gave viewers a rapid succession of wildly different sounds and visual accompaniments to those sounds, without any logic connecting one video to another. That, in Jameson's framework, serves to confuse viewers, harm their ability to use culture to build identities, and increase the risk of people failing to build identities altogether — making them "schizophrenic" in his terminology.

"The rapid fire succession of signifiers in MTV style media erodes the viewers sense of temporal continuity," Peretti writes. "To use the same words that Jameson uses to describe schizophrenic experiences, the images that flash across the MTV viewers' retina are 'isolated, disconnected, discontinuous material signifiers which fail to link up into a coherent sequence.'" (As Wolters notes, those rapid fire MTV signifiers are "Not so unlike those GIF-loaded posts on BuzzFeed.") https://www.vox.com/2014/5/20/5730762/buzzfeeds-founder-used...

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#369

Post by BillyTheMage »

furyg3 wrote: post #259
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.…

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…

"Designated screen time" makes my stomach curl. That's a surefire way to make sure a kid who has interest never develops any skills and resents you for ruining a career opportunity later down the road (I know from experience).

I find it odd that most people in this thread are equating "screen time" to "watching videos". My parents were like that, they never understood that mucking around in OSes and writing crappy software is a totally different thing from watching YouTube videos about eggs.

I think you should modify your limits on screen time. Make limits on mindless entertainment kind of screen time, not on productive learning screen time. I'd consider it abusive to force your kid off the computer when they're in the middle of configuring a kernel "for their own good".

Like I said, I know from experience. I feel like I'm a decade behind because my parents thought I was "playing" on the computer instead of learning valuable professional skills which is what I Was doing. I doubt you're actually that kind of person, but to a point they were suspicious of my attempts to learn those things. They thought I was up to no good because I wasn't mindlessly glued to YouTube or whatever they do on their computers.

Re: YouTube has become the world's nanny

#370

Post by BillyTheMage »

passwordoops wrote: post #112
alxmng wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What age are you talking about?

9-11 To be clear, we were strict up until the pandemic when we let things slide. Then all the friends were on messenger and if that's the only source of socializing, well ok. We didn't have YT on the tablet, but through ad clicking she discovered it would sometimes open in the browser, then she just figured out how the browser works. I'd say there was close to a year of virtually unfettered access, up to 2 hours a da…

I think if a 9 to 11 year old doesn't understand that there's a web browser already, and how it differs from the YouTube app, you've failed to teach your kids vital information, and are putting them at risk. You're leaving them defenseless under the guise of keeping them safe. You shouldn't have given them a tablet in the first place until they understand basic things like that.

Ultimately, as you have learned, your child will circumvent your restrictions. You could go ahead and teach them how to be safe, or you could let them fall unprepared into monster-infested waters.

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