From watching friendly kids content to watching disturbing contents of fictional characters that are oddly unsatisfying for viewers, there’s a dark side of YouTube kids’ channels that parents have to beware of what your children are watching. If you have ever been in a situation where you’re child or your siblings are watching normal, friendly kids’ cartoons on YouTube, it seems innocent doesn’t it? Of course, parents give their children’s tablets or other electronic devices to keep them entertained and occupied. It’s understandable that parents do need some time for themselves away from their children. There’s nothing wrong with that. However, if parents are allowing their children to watch unfiltered videos on YouTube without any adult supervision, there’s a limit where you need to take their electronic devices away.
Why are the contents so disturbing?
As you see the photo above, the title and the video shows how disturbing it is. Showing a doctor injecting a syringe to a crying child, with drops of blood on his face. The aspect of this video orientates for children because of its attracting, friendly animation. On the contrary, deep within the video, it’s full of disturbing content that includes violence such as, rape, dismemberment, kidnapping, abortion, coprophilia ( abnormal interest and pleasure in feces), drug addiction, and other violent contents that are very inappropriate for suitable young audiences to watch. These videos seem innocent and happy, featuring bright colors that seem normal for kids. However, these horrific messages and behaviors that are covered in a light and innocent veil, makes other children think that they’re acceptable and good, influencing them to imitate these explicit actions. YouTube channels, such as, “Toy Family” and “Good Baby Toys”, include children actors, showing no manners and getting buried alive by adult actors, and repeated, copyright animations. A YouTube channel named “Good Baby Toys” uploaded a video, “BURIED ALIVE Spiderman vs Frozen Elsa Baby Pink Spidergirl Joker Family Fun Superhero movie” (not even making up this exaggerating, long title), presents two adult actors capturing a young boy actor in a Spiderman costume and burying him alive. This vile act shows physical violence, which children cannot watch. Little do you know, the viewers of these foul YouTube kids’ videos are mainly children.
Do They Affect Children?
According to my personal experience, my young cousin who’s 5 years old, had a small conversation with her aunt. Her aunt asked her a question, “what do you want for your birthday?” What she said was very surprisingly weird. She answered with a smile, “A pregnant barbie doll.” I stopped for a moment to let those words sink in, and thought to myself, she obviously watched “one” of those videos where these people are unboxing strange toys. Stores like Target, Walmart, or Toys R Us don’t sell a “pregnant barbie doll”. As I researched “pregnant barbie doll” on the internet and browsed through the shopping area, they can be sold in either Ebay or Amazon. In that case, there’s no way in heck where her aunt could buy her a “pregnant barbie doll” for her birthday at a local store.
These videos import subliminal messages to children’s developing minds, (where they’re learning to name colors and ABCs) which can influence them to imitate these actions that seem desirable for them. According to an interviewee’s perspective, she stated, “learning about birth, sex, or drugs, and even abortion at an early age is something that they think is okay.” For example, an article, “8-year-old boy drives four-year-old sister to Mcdonald’s after watching YouTube driving videos” (Thursday 13 April 2017), tells about an eight-year-old boy driving to McDonald’s with his younger four-year-old sister to buy a cheeseburger. The young boy and his sister took off with their parent’s van while their parents were asleep at their home. Witnesses called the police when they later saw the boy driving in the van. As the policemen arrived, “somewhat astoundingly, the boy informed the officer he had learned to drive by closely observing YouTube videos”. Mainly, these videos rarely shows kids how to show manners, kindness, honesty, and etc. Instead, these videos are to entertain children with unpleasant humor that sickens other viewers.
Let’s be deeper in depth, within the early cognitive development of babies and toddlers. In early development, where the child is learning colors, ABCs, and numbers, and knowing the difference between fantasy and reality. Based off from an information from a video “Investigating YouTube — Replacing Early Cognitive Development With Conditioning” (by Investigating YouTube), mentions about some videos of “bad baby” appears different variety of colors, and the person behind the video shows a color of an object and names the color of it incorrectly. For instance, the color of the lollipop is red; however, the person behind the video names the red lollipop “yellow”. This results the child, who’s watching these incorrect behavioral videos, can lead to a condition called, “learned helplessness”, a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a traumatic event or persistent failure to succeed. It is thought to be one of the underlying causes of depression. These non-educational videos explicitly builds anxiety to children who are learning at an early stage.
Conclusion
Parents need to be aware of their children using their electronic devices, especially watching videos from YouTube or YouTube Kids. It’s obvious that the point of it is to deceive and manipulate innocent children. Researchers who are gathering information on why these people behind these vile videos are creating and targeting young audiences. On the other hand, bringing awareness of these disturbing videos can prevent children from taking harmful risks. Would you prevent it?
Note:
Thank you “Investigating YouTube” for helpful information. They post informational videos on YouTube where they investigates about this situation, to help and bring awareness. For more information, subscribe to their channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHBWN1CtqAgnKgN6xIJBFPg
