Digital Smarts - Young Kids and YouTube: Ads, Toys and Games

Young children are watching a wide range of videos on YouTube that are chock full of advertisements, sometimes have violent footage, and offer little educational value, according to a report from academics and Common Sense Media in their annual survey of kids and media. YouTube is a juggernaut in kids’ media, and viewership has shot up during the pandemic. But the company has struggled to police the videos that kids watch, even after investing deeply in ways to better moderate children’s content once it became a political problem. The new report argues that YouTube hasn’t done enough. Researchers collected more than 1,600 videos from 191 parents that their children, all younger than 8, watched on YouTube’s main site this year. Among the findings: Ads were present on 95% of the videos in the study. A fifth of the ads were categorized as age inappropriate -- a bourbon commercial on a nail painting video for girls; another ad, during a video game clip, that asked, “should the U.S. deport illegal immigrants?”

“Protecting kids and families is a top priority for us,” a YouTube spokeswoman said in a statement responding to the report. “Because YouTube is not for children, we’ve invested significantly in the creation of the YouTube Kids app, a destination made specifically for kids to explore their imagination and curiosity. We’re encouraged by the report’s findings that 63% of parents supervise their kids’ experience on YouTube, but continue to recommend parents use YouTube Kids if they plan to allow kids under 13 to watch independently.”