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Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

theatlantic.com

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Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#141

Post by bdamm »

threatofrain wrote: post #133
bdamm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may make a different choice after years of being unable to do anything but give 100% of your attention to the child. Someone needs to cook & clean, or go to work, after all. In the "old days" you'd just cut your kid loose into the environment. Well, these days, TV and iPads are part of the environment, and YouTube along with it. I'm not saying you wouldn't make boundaries. Boundaries are important. But that may a…

YouTube, iPads, TV's, can float around in the homes of other families, and your kids can visit their homes and play on their Xbox or whatever. But that doesn't mean these things need to be part of your kids home, work, or play routine. Even kids in nice areas around the bay area aren't about to suddenly bring home an iPad or iPhone without their parents notice. Kids will beg, but they will also learn to stop begging;…

Lol! Let's check back when you have a kid of your own. There are so many reasons why your idea of how it works is not quite right. (Bike around the city? A 3yr old? Surely you jest!)

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#142

Post by fil_a_del_fee_a »

A majority of these videos have the same recurring Disney / Marvel characters. I have a VERY STRONG suspicion these videos ARE sponsored by these very companies. There is no way they would allow these videos to get 100+ MILLION views if they weren't behind it. Regular people get fined and/or arrested for copyright infringement and/or pirating content all the time.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#143

Post by luca_ing »

mncharity wrote: post #131

I wonder if some of these formats might be leveraged for informal science education content? For instance, there was a play-doh egg surprise with a lego doctor figure with a stethoscope. Imagine instead an egg surprise with a real stethoscope (and maybe the figure and/or say a real egg with an inked on scope). Then show kindergarten kids using stethoscopes (it's a thing). Build associations between heartbeat sounds,…

Good idea.

But judging by my son's behaviour he would just select the next video once the "boring" educational content starts :-(

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#144

Post by mipmap04 »

sharemywin wrote: post #61
vkjv wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or at the very least, the content that parent watched and approved before. In my experience, kids are willing to watch the same content many, many more times than an adult. This makes this strategy reasonable.

if they had an opt in that would be great but pretty sure its all opt out.

This would be a pretty easy service to write, however. Adding it to the list of projects I need to eventually get to!

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#145

Post by mncharity »

luca_ing wrote: post #143
mncharity wrote: post #131

I wonder if some of these formats might be leveraged for informal science education content? For instance, there was a play-doh egg surprise with a lego doctor figure with a stethoscope. Imagine instead an egg surprise with a real stethoscope (and maybe the figure and/or say a real egg with an inked on scope). Then show kindergarten kids using stethoscopes (it's a thing). Build associations between heartbeat sounds,…

Good idea. But judging by my son's behaviour he would just select the next video once the "boring" educational content starts :-(

> once the "boring" educational content starts

Imagine a cartoon about a kid playing with a doll. Cartoon creators know a lot about related topics, like life skills, social dynamics, fashion, etc. And so they can seamlessly integrate bits of those rich domains of expertise into the cartoon. The OP cartoon bear video covers a lot of ground.

But now imagine a cartoon about a kid playing with a puddle. Cartoon creators know very little about puddles. Almost nothing of their physics, biology, chemistry, geology, engineering, and so on. No clue - stomp, laugh, mess. So science doesn't get the integrated and engaging storytelling which those other topics do. But there seems no fundamental reason it can't.

Except... searching for videos is painful. Even when you know a video exists, it's often implausible to find. Using google and bing video search to find bits of educational content, feels like searching the web circa early AltaVista - one stop among several, all of very limited effectiveness.

FWIW, here's a big stinky whale heart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJnKuw7Wvz4 hoisted for display https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4JIwlkUdEs . A kid demoing a heart rate app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOjWmA_7yUc , and taking a stress test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCS_6ixfq8U . A fetal hr app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XaYl6RJVsc&start=13 . A rabbit hr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADLFLDszTYA&start=50 . A boring video of an interactive heart anatomy app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLyXWjWcQtc&start=65 , to illustrate that VR/AR has the potential to massively disrupt education. A boring exhibit with some hearts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QthT9bs8Tws&start=15 . There are very many videos on stethoscope use, variously flawed. Which is great for assembling piles of Fair Use clips, but not so good for linking here. And... out of time.

So to reframe my original question: I wonder if youtube kids viral video formats might be used for outreach... but the cost of creation could be prohibitively large. Though there might be low hanging fruit, like a play-do egg surprise, filled with water, or bubble foam, or jello, or liquid nitrogen, or hydrogen, or...

Thanks for your comment. I was(am?) considering an education project, but was clearly doing selective memory on just how massively time consuming it would be.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#146

Post by coolaliasbro »

cpach wrote: post #45
SkyMarshal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you just do it the old fashioned way - teach them to read and give them books. If they can use an iPad they can read.

No. Kids can operate iPads long well before they are able to learn how to read.

I think parent was referring to children that can read, but in any case, children don't come preloaded with tablets, etc.. If my son decides to get crafty and throw a fit because I will not let him play with my phone (ever) or a PS4 controller or whatever, his ass can sit in his room and figure it out and/or cry. I don't negotiate with terrorists.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#147

Post by megous »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #130
megous wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The child might simply get desensitized. Try watching disturbing violence (war images/videos for example) for a while yourself. Empathic response will blunt itself within a week or two.

That's probably the scariest thing about disturbing violence. Ceasing to be disturbing is the bigger issue than being disturbing IMO. But I'm weird and think that it's far better to let children see sex than even regular hollywood violence, and that things like US military recruitment ads and ISIS recruitment videos should be treated identically (restricted behind a warning that they're not for kids). The normalizati…

Sure. As an adult you can still continue seeing it as wrong (if you did before). It will just not give you chills.

Trouble with children is that they may not yet have the moral compass for lack of a better phrase. I would find it important to talk to the child and ask him what he's thinking about the videos, and make sure he understands that the behavior in the videos is horrible, ends the life of another person, what that means, etc. I'd also make sure the child would not get trapped in some cycle of feeling guilty for simply watching some videos and having/not having whatever reactions to it.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#148

Post by luca_ing »

mncharity wrote: post #145
luca_ing wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea. But judging by my son's behaviour he would just select the next video once the "boring" educational content starts :-(

> once the "boring" educational content starts Imagine a cartoon about a kid playing with a doll. Cartoon creators know a lot about related topics, like life skills, social dynamics, fashion, etc. And so they can seamlessly integrate bits of those rich domains of expertise into the cartoon. The OP cartoon bear video covers a lot of ground. But now imagine a cartoon about a kid playing with a puddle. Cartoon creators…

The thing is, kids are incredibly primed to recognise and cherish brands. I find it shocking, to be honest.

They want a Paw Patrol figurine to emerge from the play-doh, for the millionth time. Not some stupid liquid hydrogen (I view it the other way around, but I'm not the target audience).

And the pull of those silly videos is incredibly strong. We also have an excellent app with literally hundreds of educational clips from "Die Sendung mit der Maus" [1] [2]. My son likes them, and will watch them for hours on end if he gets the chance -- and so will I, because they are genuinely interesting and amusing.

Yet if given the choice, he will pick Youtube and the silly videos every time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Sendung_mit_der_Maus [2] http://www.wdrmaus.de/extras/maus_international/englisch.php...

> I was(am?) considering an education project

Wonderful. We can't have enough decent, genuinely amusing education, especially against this flood of trash.

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#149

Post by j_s »

utefan001 wrote: post #85

This is how my 11 year old daughter uses YouTube now... After 30 min, DNS no longer works for entertainment sites. In order to fix that she has to do 5 Khan problems or read thoery.com, Duolingo, prodigy math, code monkey, splash math, Xtra math, or typing club. It takes her 5 to 7 mins to earn points. My server detects points and re enables DNS replies for YouTube, etc. Best result so far is she now understands how…

For the record: 'Circle with Disney' uses ARP poisoning to do this without per-endpoint-setup; a one-time device buy for the home + subscription for on-the-go/mobile data (which VPNs back through the device at home).

https://meetcircle.com/

Re: Algorithm That Makes Preschoolers Obsessed with YouTube

#150

Post by j_s »

utefan001 wrote: post #115
cjf101 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is brilliant. DNS + API is a really smart way to build this. If you haven't done it already, it would be pretty straightforward to post a notification to the child's device (via a companion app on selected platforms) as an additional cue to let them know that they'd used up their time. I'm halfway tempted to set this up for _myself_. You're absolutely right that 30 minutes is gone in instant when you start in on…

We plan to add GitHub progress tracking just for fun. Last year we had full PITM, parent in the middle support, instant YouTube video notification, search history, but 2 problems, I worried parent would login to bank on child's device, exposing creds to server and also, kids use crazy amount of gigs per day. Traffic volume to cloud http proxy was massive during tests.

Implement the proxy on-prem? (Raspberry Pi, etc.)
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