Finally…A Little Help with the YouTube Rabbit Hole
“My word, that’s annoying.” It’s been less than three minutes and I’m already regretting choosing to work on the couch with my three year old.
“I know, but it’s the only completely mom-approved channel on TV.” That’s my wife. She’s talking about Disney Junior. I’m complaining about “Kate and Mim-Mim,” a typical Disney preschool feel-good distraction fest. If anyone has suicide statistics for Disney Jr. writers, I’d like to see them. I bet it’s surprisingly high.
She has a point, though. Even if the program on another channel is something we approve of as parents, we can’t really trust the commercials. If broadcast television is like this, with all its regulations and taboo content, how much worse is the internet?
Google announced last month that they were releasing an app designed specifically for kids under thirteen that provides curated content for families as well as a few additional controls mom and dad will like. The ad they released on YouTube — naturally — is actually an unintentional example of why this app is needed in the first place. When the ad ends, YouTube recommends a litany of other videos you may enjoy. It’s a fairly typical approach: “If you liked this, you’ll probably also like [insert similar content here].” In one case, the thinking appeared to be “If you liked this video ad by YouTube, you’ll probably also like this parody ad by YouTube.” So I chose that one. It ends and the next collection of recommendations arrives. “If you liked this video mocking music video tropes, you will probably also like this video mocking popular scenes from bad movies.” And with that click, we hit the parenting trifecta: sex, violence, strong language — all in one five-minute video. Two clicks. That’s all it took to get from a celebration of a new app to protect children from more mature content, to the content we want to protect them from.
It’s not that YouTube is intentionally misleading. It didn’t opt for more nefarious recommendations. “If you liked this video of Elmo, here’s a video of barely legal girls performing lap dances.” It’s operating to the best of its recommendation algorithm’s ability. But its programming can only do so much to account for the user. Further, more than 300 hours of video are added to YouTube every minute. It’s simply impossible to have a functional understanding of every video it hosts.
That’s exactly why I’m excited for this app. I’d like to say that I have complete supervision of every moment my kids are online, but that’s not true. As an example, my son likes to watch Minecraft videos on YouTube. They are what you would expect: people providing virtual tours of the virtual worlds they’ve created in the game. He showed me one once. It was harmless, but more than harmless, it was annoying and long. And so I left him to it. When I checked back in a few minutes later, he was watching another one. And a few minutes later it was another one. But this time, as I was walking out the door, I heard the narrator describe his game with language I don’t allow my then-eight year old to use. With this app, I don’t have to worry that the videos are going to link down a rabbit trail of increasingly less relevant or appropriate topics while my back is turned.
Equally important in my eyes is another feature of the app: parental controls. I can lock down the ability to search beyond what’s curated on the home page — content I can readily and easily validate myself. I can also limit the amount of time spent on the app. If there’s a concern with “screen time,” this addresses it.
Is this a substitute for active parenting? Of course not. Is this a good way to address the constantly shifting standards and conditions of parenting in 2015? Absolutely.
