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YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

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Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#191

Post by Thorrez »

ViktorRay wrote: post #88
Thorrez wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“We do limit their time on YouTube and other platforms and other forms of media. On weekdays we tend to be more strict, on weekends we tend to be less so. We’re not perfect by any stretch,” >He stressed “everything in moderation” is what works best for him and his wife, and that extends to other online services and platforms. >YouTube’s former CEO Susan Wojcicki, also barred her children from browsing videos on the…

The issue is that the business models of these platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, tik tok) are based on maximizing engagement. And maximizing engagement in this context means spending ever increased amounts of time on one platform over another or over doing offline activities like reading a book and going outside. So the tech leaders preach moderation but the design of all these apps are built to be addictive a…

YouTube Kids has a built-in timer to limit the amount of time kids can watch.

https://www.youtube.com/intl/ALL_us/kids/parent-resources/

Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#192

Post by Thorrez »

OccamsMirror wrote: post #67
Thorrez wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“We do limit their time on YouTube and other platforms and other forms of media. On weekdays we tend to be more strict, on weekends we tend to be less so. We’re not perfect by any stretch,” >He stressed “everything in moderation” is what works best for him and his wife, and that extends to other online services and platforms. >YouTube’s former CEO Susan Wojcicki, also barred her children from browsing videos on the…

My kids aren’t allowed on YouTube. I run a local system that mirrors approved channels to our home server and serves them through Plex. Creators lose ad revenue; that’s unfortunate. The alternative was nonstop ads on children’s content and a recommendation system pushing garbage. That trade-off was unacceptable.

Regarding ads, wouldn't YouTube Premium solve that? Regarding recommendations, YouTube kids allows you to select certain videos, channels, or collections, and only allow your kids to view those that you've selected.

https://www.youtube.com/intl/ALL_us/kids/parent-resources/

Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#193

Post by Nasrudith »

dredmorbius wrote: post #50
mikeodds wrote: post #17

I don’t think this idea is that controversial? Most (?) people would agree watching YouTube 16 hrs a day is bad, but agree there is also a benefit to some of the content available.

It's almost as if ... being able to download specific content for offline viewing ... might be a far preferable option in terms of selection, control, and not getting sucked into an algorithmic wormhole.

Or perhaps that algorithms are just a scapegoat for the ignorant and superstitious and yet another example of the oh so trendy serf mentality that takes no responsibility for their own life and its progreession.

Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#194

Post by onlyhumans »

dachris wrote: post #111
conception wrote: post #94

This thread is person after person saying “oh wow, person who sells terrible thing for humanity doesn’t let their kids have unlimited access to terrible thing! It’s so obvious. This isn’t news.” The news is that the CEO of youtube is saying that Youtube is something that should be limited and he thinks harm will come to his children if he does not. This may be obvious to people on this site but a lot of normal people…

Lots of normal people don't think it's fine. Lots of parents limited their kids' TV (television, you know) time back in the day (mine sure did, thanks mum and dad, even though I didn't particularly approve of the restriction back then). Now you have to limit smartphone (and tablet and PC and TV) time. Lots of parents do this already, CEOs are not alone.

What is a better way to get your kids to behave than to let them scroll TikTok with headphones on for hours? Phone is a babysitter nowadays.

Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#195

Post by theshrike79 »

conception wrote: post #94

This thread is person after person saying “oh wow, person who sells terrible thing for humanity doesn’t let their kids have unlimited access to terrible thing! It’s so obvious. This isn’t news.” The news is that the CEO of youtube is saying that Youtube is something that should be limited and he thinks harm will come to his children if he does not. This may be obvious to people on this site but a lot of normal people…

I personally think Youtube itself is just fine. It has parental controls and I can block channels etc.

What isn't fine is YOUTUBE FUCKING SHORTS. It's by far the worst of the infinite content producers in the world because automated uploads are so easy compared to the other platforms and there is no way to block it completely from kids without just banning all of Youtube. It _needs_ to have a separate setting.

Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#196

Post by alsetmusic »

amitav1 wrote: post #175
amelius wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In schools there should be a class about safe internet use and it should be mandatory to write an essay about the benefits children get personally from using social media as well as the downsides.

Saying this as a current high school student: there should be as few mandatory classes as possible. Your maths, sciences, and Englishes make sense. In Ontario, we also have to take French (bit more iffy, but I guess it's an official language), Civics (fluff), careers (more fluff), and technology and the skilled trades (I like technology, but still fluff). The more classes you stuff into school that don't relate to wh…

It's funny how much you think you know better than adults when you're a teen (and even into your twenties, when your brain is still developing for half that time).

I never would have thought there was value in a lot of things I was forced to learn at that age. Even for the stuff that hasn't had practical application in my life (flying buttress, for example), I wouldn't retroactively reduce how much learning I was expected to complete.

Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#197

Post by dredmorbius »

Nasrudith wrote: post #193
dredmorbius wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if ... being able to download specific content for offline viewing ... might be a far preferable option in terms of selection, control, and not getting sucked into an algorithmic wormhole.

Or perhaps that algorithms are just a scapegoat for the ignorant and superstitious and yet another example of the oh so trendy serf mentality that takes no responsibility for their own life and its progreession.

1. Being able to specifically curate and manage content, by downloading it, is precisely the user-centric self-sovereignty which counters that serf mentality. And Google (and numerous other algorithmically-driven services) explicitly target and disable such tools where and when they can. See the ongoing war against yt-dlp, extensively discussed on HN: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=yt%2Ddlp>. Not to mention the earlier youtube-dl: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.

Another was mps-youtube, a CLI client which was hands-down the best interface YouTube ever had. Search (videos, channels), list-creation, download, and playback preferences (audio-only, which I largely prefer, full video, specified video resolution and/or audio quality, etc.), all locally managed without any obligation for a YouTube account. Of course Google killed it by way of its API key. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36149183> and generally https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...>.

2. Just how much autonomy, wisdom, and ability to counter teams of highly-paid and highly-qualified attention engineers do you expect children and infants to possess? Or even their harried and distracted parents?

Arguments for self-restraint against commercial addiction merchants have played poorly for well over 150 years, going back to the unregulated hawking of morphine- and cocaine-laced products, amongst others.

Re: YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same

#198

Post by amitav1 »

alsetmusic wrote: post #196
amitav1 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying this as a current high school student: there should be as few mandatory classes as possible. Your maths, sciences, and Englishes make sense. In Ontario, we also have to take French (bit more iffy, but I guess it's an official language), Civics (fluff), careers (more fluff), and technology and the skilled trades (I like technology, but still fluff). The more classes you stuff into school that don't relate to wh…

It's funny how much you think you know better than adults when you're a teen (and even into your twenties, when your brain is still developing for half that time). I never would have thought there was value in a lot of things I was forced to learn at that age. Even for the stuff that hasn't had practical application in my life (flying buttress, for example), I wouldn't retroactively reduce how much learning I was exp…

I agree that I'm probably wrong, which is why I still go to school.
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