YouTube Kids is massively popular and also the actual worst content the world has to offer. The most successful content, racking up hundreds of millions of views, is extremely vapid and just consists of sounds and colours punctuated by disguised adverts for expensive toys. No narrative, no speech, nothing educational. Kids are so malleable and early development is so important, yet a sizeable chunk are watching people in knock-off Spider-Man costumes unwrap toys and chase around knock-off Elsas all day. I won’t even get into the unsettling uncanny valley side of things and the creepy procedurally generated animation on there.
I’m genuinely concerned about kids being brought up on what is essentially mental junk food through their most formative years. I’m not saying they all need to be listening to violin concertos all day, but I feel that when I was a kid straight up garbage like this didn’t even exist and every kids show had at least something you could learn from it, like Sesame Street, or was decently produced entertainment, like Pokemon. This has a quarter of a billion views and it’s just... nothing.
When I have a child I don't want it watching those Instagram "influencer" channels that feature hyper-sexualized women and men. Just like the Elsa/Spiderman shit they deliberately use children's sexuality for views. I feel like the instagram stuff is worse because when they're little there's no social pressure to give them a phone. But as children get older they will want a phone and an instagram profile as to not be an outcast. It worries me a lot. I don't know how I will balance my child's need to socialise on the phone without pureeing their brain into mush.
Same here. Instagram can be ruinious for mental health because, no matter what you're good at, there's someone else doing it better than you on Instagram (and looking better at the same time). Luckily I missed out on TikTok, because that look even worse and extremely hypersexualised. If you're a girl on there you better be conventionally hot, because if you're overweight or have a big nose or an asymmetrical face you can bet there'll be an army of strangers letting you know about it.