What role does YouTube play in the lives of Australian families with children? As the federal government plans to include YouTube in its forthcoming ban on social media accounts for children under the age of 16, Guardian readers responded to a call out about their own kids’ use of the platform and what they thought of the ban.
This is what they told us.
‘Simply impossible to monitor’
Parents frequently reported they were restricting their children’s use to shared areas by co-watching or through parental controls. But many said this was time-intensive and nearly impossible to maintain and were concerned about what content was slipping under their radar.
“We use YouTube Kids and always check what they watch before we let them watch anything on there. We do this because YouTube cannot be trusted – the algorithm leads you very quickly down weird or concerning rabbit holes and the messaging in a video is often subtle and hard to screen as a parent without pre-watching everything (which is not realistic).
“The final reason [we restrict our children’s use] is because of my own experience with YouTube as an adult. I currently feel like I am having to actively fight against the algorithm taking me in direction I don’t want to go. I watch one video of a gel blaster, and I get 100 videos of Americans shooting guns. One video of a bodybuilder in the gym and I get 100 scantily clad fitness models … If I have to fight this hard, YouTube would do the same with my kids.”
Marty, father of two children under 9, Brisbane
“Before we removed it, our children would watch YouTube for hours. We removed it because they would get stuck in gratification loops and jump from one video to the next.
“I have enjoyed watching some videos with our children. Some are clever and very funny. But ultimately it’s too difficult to regulate, filter content and be sure they’re not being exposed to potentially harmful content. We have three boys and we’re aware that many videos contain explicit and implicit attitudes that young boys can be influenced by when it comes to women, for example.”
Parent of three children who are 13, 11 and 6 years old, Adelaide
“YouTube is the bane of our existence – we wish it never existed. Our son locks himself in his room and for the recent school holidays spent almost the entire two weeks on YouTube and gaming. We’ve got no idea what harmful content he’s seen as there always seems to be a loophole to internet monitoring software.”
Dan, parent of a 15-year-old and a 12-year-old, Melbourne
“YouTube provides next to no useful parental controls over content and the few measures they do have are next to useless (having gone through the whole thing very recently). While so far we have been lucky in that [our son’s] rather narrow focus has kept his feed relatively free of less than ideal content, we are always concerned that he will be served up something totally inappropriate.”
Gerard, father of a 13-year-old, Canberra
“There is no control over what they see. Even with strict settings on YouTube kids, my child was automatically played horrific content disguised as kid’s TV.”
Peter, father of three children who are 2, 4 and 6 years old, Sydney
“It is simply impossible to monitor the content that is being viewed but even through occasional glances at the feed I can tell that my daughter is being exposed to a lot of material with beauty/body image stereotypes, while my son’s feed tends to be more larrikin/sport oriented. I am also left with the impression that the content is rife with misinformation.”
Richard, parent of a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old, Hobart
“My children are children and by that definition are easily swayed by bright lights and dopamine-releasing repetitive reward programming. My issues with YouTube is that it is used as a kind of poker machine to make money off of our built in thirst for dopamine and we all have been sucked in. I would prefer more controls to avoid the rubbish while benefiting from the very good content available but alas the reality is that the educational stuff is not the money maker, the brain draining, high energy, colourful trope is the heart of what runs this behemoth.”
Monique, parent of an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old, Bell Post Hill
‘They can watch it for hours without breaks’
From fleeting attention spans and hours wasted to concerns about the content that can slip under the radar of children’s YouTube feeds, many parents felt the YouTube algorithm encouraged excessive use and offered potentially harmful content.
“I do worry how short content impacts their ability to pay attention and I notice that a TV or a movie definitely doesn’t hold their attention for as long. We have to give a warning before we turn it off to manage the transition away from screens. Some of the content certainly seems mindless (like my daughter watching another child playing with dolls) but they also regularly tell me interesting facts and info they’ve learned on YouTube.”
Parent of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, Sydney
“The waste of time it actively cultivates through the algorithm, there’s no warning as to what will pop up next, it seems to get weirder and more extreme the longer you watch it. I have no faith in the tech companies caring about the wellbeing of children. I think they actively create algorithms that are harmful in purpose to get eyeballs for longer.”
Alicia, parent of an 8-year-old and a 12-year-old, Colonel Light Gardens
“If left to watch YouTube by themselves, as they have occasionally at friends’ houses, it is always puerile, short-attention-span mashup [of] rubbish or scary videos such as [the horror video game] Poppy Playtime, etc. Our youngest watched three hours of this at a friend’s house a few years ago and had nightmares for months.
I’m very supportive of the educational content in YouTube, but despite having free access to this the kids just do not seem to choose to watch it and only watch rubbish.”
Damien, father of a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old, Sydney
“It’s has been (at times) frustrating due to YouTube being happy to expose our kids to inappropriate content. Shorts is diabolical. But it has gotten better once we could identify our kids as YouTube users.”
Matt, father of a 16-year-old and an 11-year-old, Ballarat
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“I teach ethics at a local public school and in a section where we asked about a dream job about half the kids said they wanted to be gamer YouTubers, which is a concern, although older age groups seem to grow out of this.
“I am less concerned about ‘inappropriate content’ as I am about completely valueless content, and kids don’t have the ability to discern the difference.”
Parent of a 15, 13 and 10-year-old, Sydney
“It’s a genuine addiction, including full-on tantrums when it is restricted.”
Parent of a 16-year-old, Brisbane, Queensland
“They can watch it for hours without breaks. So the rule we have now is one hour a day. Especially for my 7-year-old who would immediately melt down and cry when it was turned off. That was a very big sign that it was not creating positive feedback to him.
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“My 12-year-old has better governance, but has on occasions been frightened by videos that have come up appearing to be for kids, but been disturbing instead … We really hate YouTube, though, and wish it wasn’t there for us to contend with.”
Parent of three children who are 7, 10 and 12 years old, Harrisdale
“He used to be able watch what he wanted, but he would only watch shorts. We found that watching these shorts all the time was effecting his mood. Since we limit his YouTube to more educational stuff, we have found his mood to be a lot more stable.”
Kevin, father of a 13-year-old, Burua
‘He learned to crochet from YouTube’
Many parents cited huge educational benefits from YouTube, from supporting niche hobbies to allowing children a creative outlet as content creators themselves.
“I am concerned about the level of unfiltered content he could easily be exposed to if he strayed off the path, but I am actually more concerned about the possibility of him losing access to it. He learned how to crochet from YouTube, we both learned about intersectional feminism and we are about to jointly learn how to weatherproof our flat.”
Single parent to a teenage son, ACT
“We use YouTube for education (eg Ms Rachel, how things are made, volcanoes, David Attenborough content), entertainment (Puffing Billy videos, music videos eg Teeny Tiny Stevies). I am a music teacher and use YouTube every day (online footage of musical performances, tutorial videos, other students playing students pieces, professional recordings of band pieces etc). [YouTube is] the best education platform in the history of civilisation!!!”
Parent to a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, Melbourne
“Both my sons 11 and 14 regularly use YouTube for information and gaming videos. My eldest has an account where he makes videos about his ant colonies. He has about 100 followers, other kids who are into ants. I don’t [support the ban]. Many kids are just sharing their knowledge and passions which is healthy.”
Parent of a 11-year-old and a 14-year-old, Sydney
“Our son uses YouTube daily for his main hobby, which is stop-motion filming with Lego setups. He spends many hours on beautiful video clips, edits them and uploads the final product to YouTube where he has followers on his own channel. The whole thing is a really creative, productive hobby, and YouTube plays a central part in it.”
Dan Arno, father of an 11-year-old son, Munich
‘If these companies will not regulate themselves then something has to be done’
Parents had a diverse range of views on whether or not a ban on under-16s from having their own YouTube accounts is desirable or effective, citing concerns about privacy in the proposed law alongside a frustration that parents were unable to protect their children from harmful or excessive use without more regulation.
“I don’t support the current legislation at all. It should be biased toward making the tech companies change their content policies, not require more [personal identification] be uploaded to the internet for age verification purposes.”
Parent of a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old, Brisbane
“Now I will have to put my own YouTube access into restricted mode to give to them access, or create a fake account, which I do not want to do. My partner and I will decide what my children watch and what social media they have access to. This is just more boomers and [members of] gen X making decisions about, and interfering with, things that are none of their business.”
Parent of two children, Western Sydney
“Digital platforms and tech bros make billions out of content creators’ violent antisocial material and it is watched over and over by impressionable kids. Parents struggle to police this and the only winners are the content creators and the digi-tech billionaire platform owners.”
Parent of a 16-year-old son, Windsor
“Their accounts give us a history of what has been watched. [A ban is] unenforceable. It’s a breach of my privacy to have to register myself.”
Tim, parent of two children, Blackburn
“100% [I support the ban]. The tech companies, despite their protestations, have proven themselves, over and over again, to have little to no interest in creating a safe environment for kids.”
Gerard, father of a 13-year-old son, Canberra
“I hem and haw about it. I’m sure that the ban will be easily breached by the under-16s who are determined. But I also think that it’s, at least, some sort of proactive method to try and halt kids and young teens from viewing inappropriate material.”
Parent of a 5-year-old son, Adelaide