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Maybe the problem isn't Netflix and Youtube, maybe the problem is letting them watch for 4 hours? And unsupervised, too. It sounds to me like it's a bit like letting your children run free in a candy store for hours and then wondering why they ate so much.

I try to teach my kids that these things are tools: we want to know how something works --> there's definitely a video on that --> we found out and turn it off again. And as with any tool, you can use them to become better or to hurt yourself.

With discipline, that is certainly doable, but YouTube is designed to tempt you down the rabbit hole. They want to maximize the amount of time you spend on their website.

You go to YouTube and order a salad. When you're done with the salad, they put a donut in front of you. When you finish that donut, they immediately put another donut in front of you.

Adults should be able to reject those temptations, but YouTube doesn't make it easy.

> They want to maximize the amount of time you spend on their website.

Is that true for YouTube kids app too? I thought you could put timers using parental settings. When the timer goes off, it will lock the device. And, some N minutes before, it would show a warning as well.

That seems way better than state of the art (dumping kids in front of TV or video game consoles etc.)

We tried the timer, but it wasn't so good for a program to suddenly cut off in the middle. I know I wouldn't be happy either if something I was into watching would just suddenly end. Now we let our kid watch about half an hour of YouTube a day, but try to let him stop at a natural place, such as the end of the video.

The only thing I really want is for foreign language videos not to appear in the list of suggested videos. Sometimes he gets trapped happily watching videos in Russian.

> Maybe the problem isn't Netflix and Youtube, maybe the problem is letting them watch for 4 hours?

I actually think the problem is specifically binge watching services like Netflix and services with very variable quality of content like YouTube.

Whilst it’s not ideal, as a kid I’d watch the BBC children’s afternoon segment from 3 till 6 after school and whilst 3 hours of TV is unlikely to have been great for me, I received a variety of programming, some ok and some great. My problem with Netflix and YouTube is a child can binge watch a whole season of average content without any variety whatsoever. It’s not just a question of quality which I’m raising but quantity of the same show episode after episode.

As far as teaching kids sure, by all means we should teach them to moderate themselves but as a 34 year old I find it takes discipline and will power to regulate myself, what hope does a toddler or infant have when faced with video services which are designed to encourage consumption?

  Maybe the problem isn't Netflix and Youtube, maybe
  the problem is letting them watch for 4 hours?

Isn't your assertion "Youtube isn't a problem so long as you don't watch for 4 hours" and leonroy's that "If you want something to watch for 4 hours, Youtube is a problem" just the same statement worded in different ways?

As others have said, watching 4 hours of anything might be problematic.

However, my point is this: different things require different amounts of moderation. Candy all day is probably worse than carrots all day. In moderation, candy is great. Same as YouTube.

I would say no, the point is that there's _nothing_ that's good to be watched for 4 hours

Something like Sesame Street might be good. My problem with YouTube is it creates feedback loops where if you like something you seek out more of it, but with a near infinite range of topics. Throw an underdeveloped mind in there who is using basic stimulus to work out what is good and bad and who knows what will happen.

Wouldn't surprise me if that feedback loop was damaging even for many adults, but at least they are responsible and already have some grasp of how the world should work.

I don't see how "youtube neglect" parenting is qualitatively different from "regular neglect" parenting, honestly. We've always have people just "dump" their kids (of any age) into a room without supervision, predominantly people who just can't afford to be present all the time.

Might be more appropriate to demand universal child care or sth along those lines instead of bashing the parents.

We've always had that. But you're assuming that neglect is the major/only factor here. I disagree. I think the major factor is what the children are doing.

Spending time alone in a room with Lego is very different from spending time alone with some dark-pattern-studded UI, even if a parent is beyond viewing distance and within shouting distance in both cases. Do I need to argue that?

> Spending time alone in a room with Lego is very different from spending time alone with some dark-pattern-studded UI, even if a parent is beyond viewing distance and within shouting distance in both cases. Do I need to argue that?

Yes, you do need to argue that.

Humans are good at learning to interact with things; neither Lego nor YouTube were present in the ancestral environment but we manage just the same. If anything I'd say that people who grow up with "dark-pattern-studded UI" all around will probably learn to handle the tricks much better than people who only encounter it as adults (just as those who grew up with social media tend to have a much healthier relationship with it than the older generation).

You tell me to argue, but you yourself just assert.

I will, though.

I'll argue my point by RAA. You may recall my phrase, "spending time alone doing <x> is very different from <y>, ….". If spending time alone doing X is not very different from Y, then it follows that pairs of activities are roughly equally educational, roughly equally dangerous, roughly equally healthy, and so on, or at least roughly equal in sum of the qualities parents care about. Ie., if one activity is more educational than another, then the other must necessarily be less dangerous for the child, so as to conserve equilibrium. This is absurd. QED.

I interpret you as saying that people are better at learning to cope with dark patterns as young children than as adults. Right? Please argue.

> "spending time alone doing <x> is very different from <y>, ….". If spending time alone doing X is not very different from Y, then it follows that pairs of activities are roughly equally educational, roughly equally dangerous, roughly equally healthy, and so on, or at least roughly equal in sum of the qualities parents care about. Ie., if one activity is more educational than another, then the other must necessarily be less dangerous for the child, so as to conserve equilibrium. This is absurd.

"This is absurd" is pure assertion. The same argument would say that spending time alone playing with lego is very different from spending time alone playing with toy trains, or with dolls, or with crayons, or in a treehouse, or ... . If you're saying that all these things are "very different from" each other, then sure, youtube is different from lego in the same way that lego is different from crayons. But very few parents seem concerned that their child spends too long playing with crayons and not long enough with lego, or vice versa, or would want to ban one in favour of the other.

> I interpret you as saying that people are better at learning to cope with dark patterns as young children than as adults. Right? Please argue.

I gave an analogy to that effect already. More generally, people are better at learning anything (particularly things that are largely subconscious) as children than as adults - languages, riding a bike, performance arts...

I’m not sure your claim is obviously true either.

I’d say that leaving kids in a an environment of addictive substances (say, cigarettes?) is a great way to get them addicted.

Why would YouTube be any different?

> I’d say that leaving kids in a an environment of addictive substances (say, cigarettes?) is a great way to get them addicted.

Just as with social media, my general impression/experience is that people who were kept away from addictive substances (cigarettes/alcohol/coffee/...) growing up tend to be more likely to have problems with them in later life than people who had them around when they were growing up.

(There are specific health reasons to keep particular substances away from young children, but that's a distinct thing).

With smoking it actually helps prevent children from acquiring the addiction if they grow up in a society where people rarely smoke. Denormalization of smoking has been proven to work.

While I agree with your statements, isn't this the same warnings that people gave years ago with the rise of television? Cable TV? Video game consoles? The internet?

I mean it's the same as children's TV on cable, with the main difference that it's infinite instead of constrained to at most a couple of hours.

It is the same set of warnings. Those warnings are justified. This is anecdotal and I am well aware that all children are different. In my case, I have a 5 year old, there is a marked difference in their behavior based on the content they are is watching. As an example, we don't let the child watch "Paw Patrol" because it winds them up due to the constant high-intensity rush to solve a problem. Where as a show such as "Creative Galaxy" is paced to emphasize content instead of emotional waves. I would say that the beauty of the internet is now we can actually limit and screen content. No longer do children watch "whatever is on TV". They watch whatever on demand show that their parents allow them to watch. This is where pre-screening and understanding your child's developmental level are the most important. "Here's a phone watch YouTube." is the extreme and as stated in a prior post could be considered neglectful.

Yes and see what happened? We got NEET (people not employed, not looking for job) and JavaScript developers coming out of walls.

We have poor quality skills

Oh come on. NEETs exist because the job market is ridiculous, and while I like to diss JavaScript like everyone else, JS developer is still an above average result in upbringing.

The job market is better than it's ever been. The jobs are better too.

If you're a skilled professional, sure. If you're just a regular person, not really.

The very existence of the so-called "gig economy" tells us something is rotten.

There's always been a lower class working terrible jobs. Driving for Uber or working fast food for $8/hour is a terrible job, but it's not as bad as working in a steel mill or coal mine.

Except the people working in the mills and mines have full time employment with benefits and salaries averaging over $50k.

Now they do, yes. That wasn't the case 100 years ago when the steel industry was cutting edge.

Registered this account to point out that, when mining was a dangerous job that didn't pay well, we invented unions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Mine_Workers#Developmen...

The mean pay of a Steel Mill is $49,050. That's a lot better than an Uber driver. It used to be significantly higher.

The key issue is supervision. YouTube Kids also has very enriching content. My hyper intelligent kid was able to direct himself to all kinds of educational content — way better than being forced to watch whatever crap was on TV like when we were growing up watching He-Man and Skeletor and GI Joe which was some real f’d up shit if you think about it. Like, they had swords and guns and shot people and it was “harmless fun”.

Just fyi - Youtube Kids sells itself as "curated" content, but you can very quickly find Jake Paul videos which are absolutely 100% not kid-friendly on it.

Wasn't GI Joe basically like the storm troopers in star wars? Laser guns and nobody gets hit?

My memory of it is hazy and likely warped by pastiches like adult swim's Too Many Cooks.

> My hyper intelligent kid was able to direct himself to all kinds of educational content

Is this the same child that was convinced sleeping under a tree would be fatal?

No, because he didn't claim it was fatal. But your comment reveals just how much of a dick you are. He's 6.

Is this an anecdote? E.g. I assume you are calling this a tremendous risk because you have seen it first-hand negatively affect your own kids mental development?

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of less tech = probably better for young kids, your comment reads as FUD. 15 minutes a day watching youtube is probably fine and will likely have minimal effect on development compared to other factors.

The content being consumed plays a huge role in this. 15 minutes a day can range from enriching to neutral to harmful. As an example, a kid repeatedly watching YouTube videos of other kids kicking each other in the balls and laughing is likely to elicit unwanted social behavior.

A couple of points:

- He also mentions something about four hours somewhere in the comment

- Less tech is not the same thing with less TV

- How are 15 minutes fine? Compared to how many?

- finaly, how is your opinion not anecdata?