YouTube is a video search engine owned by Google and it is the world’s second-largest search engine on the Internet. It is extremely popular among people of all age groups as it offers a wide variety of video related to music, devotional, sports, news, Education, DIY, cooking, dance and etc. and the reason for its massive popularity is that it provide a platform for creators to make videos and start earning and it also helps viewers with a massive list of content on any topic which they can watch, share and download easily.
This generation of people are addicted to YouTube some use it for learning, some use it to kill boredom and some simply use it for entertainment purposes and the algorithm is been set in such a way that it hooks the viewer in watching one content after other as it keeps recommending the related videos of your preferences so it becomes kind of addictive and parents of this generation are passing this addiction to a new generation as many new parents are using YouTube as a tool to keep their child busy which can be harmful to the young kids.
YouTube has made a special platform for kids called YouTube for kids where lots of kids channels are available on YouTube which create content related to kids only like Poems, Rhymes, arts and craft, Cartoons, Stories, Games, etc. so when parents see their child is getting irritated, showing tantrums or not eating food properly they just select one of the kid’s channel on YouTube and hands over the phone to their kids and kids of this generation are so smart they catch thing quickly so they know how to go from one video to another and they sat there for hours and hours moving from videos to videos
Though it makes the parenting job easy as they no longer have to keep an eye on the kids for safety reasons as kids are not roaming around the house as they are just sitting or lying at one place for many hours watching YouTube videos, However, it can do more harm than good as the most parent instead of using YouTube for kids they give their mobile phones which has YouTube which is for adults and kids can watch cartoons and poems in the devices but there is a huge risk they can be exposed to nudity and adult content, violence, suicide and etc.
YouTube tries hard to make their platform safe for children’s but revenue is the only goal in YouTube so many content creators make fake content and clickbait Title deceiving the YouTube guidelines. Google tries harder to control videos by filtering out the adult content but they have no control over advertisements as many times advertisements which were made for adult audiences but kids are using their parents mobile so ads which they will get are mostly adults related ads making them exposed to adult related content.
Remedial Measures were taken by YouTube
- The first thing Google did in order to make YouTube safe for kids is launching a totally new platform called “ YouTube Kids “ which caters to a young audience only.
- Google has a strict policy where they don’t allow children below 13 to create an account on YouTube and they also don’t collect any information or minors and if any kids are found violating the rules they will be banned from using YouTube.
- YouTube has a very clear stand against the violator of their policy they deleted millions of videos and deleted comments which shows predatory behavior
Currently, Google can’t measure their success with these efforts but they are making efforts to make YouTube safe for children but still, they got long ways to go as still Google can’t measure the content and quality of the videos as millions of videos get uploaded daily but once Google started measuring the quality of the video this would make YouTube for children much safer to use.
Remedial Measures by Parents
- Parents can set parental control on devices so that children can’t use YouTube without their permissions
- Parents should monitor and check the videos and site before allowing kids to watch. For Example, they can download the children-friendly content video and give it to children, they will get safe from ads and unknown videos and parents will have all the control over what children are watching.
- YouTube is good for children but doesn’t let your children become addicted to it as this will create problems in the long run as kids are full of energy so play games and do activities which help in releasing that energy rather than making them sit in one place with mobile which is neither productive and can lead to weak eyesight and another health issue.
