What a world.
Five years ago that would have been more to avoid them from stumbling across the various types of adult content that for various reasons I would have preferred them not to view, and perhaps the HN zeitgeist would have called me a puritan (although I'm not just thinking sex and violence here, but also things like conspiracy theories and politics they are currently incapable of processing and other things [1]). Now, unfortunately, it's more about avoiding the brain hackers that you describe that know how to hack their brains into getting low-level addicted to that sort of garbage, and now perhaps the HN zeitgeist will be less offended at my policy that a poor defenseless six-year-old or nine-year-old in my case can't be expected to defend themselves against this level of sophistication.
(Because however stupid those videos may strike you as an adult, they are sophisticated, in their own way. The "cartoons that were just toy commercials" of my youth were nothing compared to what modern kids are being targeted by.)
The good news is that we're actually finding some channels where we have some common ground. For instance, they're really digging Homestar Runner now, and I've got some others that I can pick and choose from that we all like.
I increasingly pity the "digital natives" that didn't get to ease themselves into this world like I did. I'm not saying they're hopelessly lost; today's article about kids rebelling against social media is heartening. I'm just saying, I had a much easier on-ramp than they did. My first few years worth of youthful indiscretions are now utterly obliterated, because the dial-in BBS they were on is now long gone. I wasn't fucking up on Facebook or where the Internet Archive could find me. By the time I got on to the real internet, oh, I'm sure I could find things that would make me cringe now, but I'm pretty confident I wasn't blowing my foot off anymore.
[1]: Oh, and I'm pleased to say that they both seem to be on track to be voracious book readers, which I think is the strongest Step One to being able to deal with the onslaught they will eventually face. My strategy here is not just mere "denial of access", as I am well aware that doesn't work into their adulthood, and my goal is to raise good adults, not good children. I'm still feeling through what my strategy is, on what is shifting sand anyhow, but there's more to it than just "shield them forever."
That one. They currently have no independent access to YouTube. (Well... technically if they knew what buttons to push where they do. I'm not using high-tech to block them. But they don't know and I'm not teaching them yet.)
Even a few years ago I might have considered this a bit much. But since "Elsa-gate" my mind on that has been changed. I know it's not just a weird conspiracy theory or something because I've even seen a couple of them pop up in my "related videos" list myself, and I don't really have a viewing profile that looks like a kids profile. (The reason why Elsa-gate is happening may be conspiracy theory related, but the brute fact that it is a thing is something I've seen first hand in my own feeds.)
The increasingly aggressive targeting behavior across the Internet is I think something not to be taken lightly. Unfortunately we're going to have to raise our children to deal with it, but my considered opinion is that the best solution before the teen age years is to just cut it off entirely. It is not as if we are leaving them adrift, the only ones without tech in an increasingly technical world; my kids play Minecraft, they've seen enough of the current YouTube videos that they can discuss them at school, their school is using technology in a halfway sensible manner so the nine-year old can already type and the six-year-old is on the way. It's only certain segments of the Internet that they are better off just locked away from.
Heck, it's not even terribly hypocritical of me... I lock myself away from those very same segments for the very same reason! I use uBlock origin pretty extensively, and whenever I see one of those bullshit Taboola blocks, I'm actively annoyed that they are so tuned that I find myself wanting to click through myself. (I'll know I've gone senile when I no longer can resist it.) I'm not magically immune to this crap, and I know it, so I avoid it. I rely on my own discipline to do it. But relying on a pre-teen's discipline is probably not a good plan.
Alternatively, there is always kids.youtube.com which is weirdly just an app for Ios/Android. I haven't tried it, and myself have actively disabled/removed all Youtube from being accessible by the younglings. Curated media, decided by me is all they get to watch then.
It's actually a cultural phenomenon of people making a living by buying toys and making you tube videos about them. You tube then pipes children's eyeballs to these videos.
I’m worried that my kid is not getting a ‘big’ view of the world, and is instead seeing it via YouTube, and anti-Trump playground conversations (which I agree with, to be sure, but it’s not a very deep or diverse understanding of the world).
When I think back to my childhood, my view of what the world, and human society (civic society?) ‘is’ came from TV news my parents happened to be watching - and occasional glances at their newspapers.
Even though I try to consume news from wide ranging sources, my kid sees none of that; it’s all an individual pursuit.
I fear there’s also a lack of ‘coherence’ in society today, and suspect that everyone watching the same news programme was something that provided it. When we think of current events, I don’t think that we’re all even aware of things outside our ‘bubbles’ - adults are sort of aware of this. What must growing up like this be like though?
I’m considering starting to watch evening network news. One problem with that is that we don’t have a TV - just iPads, laptops, and a projector for watching movies.
I’ve also subscribed to a delivery of the newspaper on Sunday (though it’s been a month and it’s never actually been successfully delivered to my home yet...)
Who’d’ve thought we’d be lamenting the decline of TV the same way our parents lamented the decline of newspapers?!
Even if you agree with the general sentiment, imagine a child growing up whose main media sources are the informational equivalent of a cross between crack cocaine and junk food.
I am considering Amazon FreeTime Unlimited as well, I would recommend trying that before a TV though I would appreciate any anecdata on it.
Also, a shout out to https://dnslearning.org/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14913547 (Aug 2017) <- expanding that whole YouTube discussion might be worth your time.
> utefan001: This is how my 11 year old daughter uses YouTube now... After 30 min, DNS no longer works for entertainment sites.
(Pricing was 1 free, $10/month but I don't see any info now... boo!)
