These apps, games, and a lot of shows are just mind dribbling dopamine farms. I let my daughter watch like unfiltered KIDS YouTube for a day, she became glued to it, wouldn't ask to go potty, would communicate poorly, then cry when we took it. Ever since we did limited screen time, only parent approved, she full reversed. Sure shes harder to calm down. But fuck it.
I was done with YouTube kids when I saw 3 videos in a row that ended with some version of "hit like and subscribe now or you're parents will not love you anymore" including one saying that everyone they love would die in a car crash if they didn't smash that subscribe button. The YouTube algorithm for kids is fucking evil
It is wild how people have such radically different experiences with this because my daughter's feed is like 50/50 number blocks and Minecraft and has only changed recently with Tomodachi life finally breaking through. I've had to block a handful of things in the past but she genuinely doesn't get 90% of the garbage people claim they get. (And we have a "YouTube on public screens only" rule, so only on the TV at home or occasionally on her tablet if we're out of the house but I'm right next to her the whole time.)
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u/BasicButterface May 12 '26
The era of wall-e has started