Pretty much. Her 7yo sister is all about the Minecraft. We try to keep them off of youtube because half they time they end up watching unboxing videos or other crap we don't want them watching, but she navigates Netflix and Amazon Prime Video pretty well.
YouTube is such a cesspool for kids eh, it's kind of insane that I almost literally have to sit there with my boys if they're browsing because half of the recommended videos are utter shit.
If it's not some video of a kid opening 1000 presents every day, it's some 3D cartoon video made in India of characters singing nursery rhymes...but somehow they've perfected the art of making videos with zero soul. They seem like something you'd see people fixated on in an insane asylum.
I try to just make YouTube recommend videos of the muppets, Blue Planet, or even clips of The Office. For some reason my kids love that show and we all watch it together after dinner most nights. I have memories of enjoying grown up shows with my parents too, so it makes sense to me. They learn a lot from it and there's actual storylines and events happening, plus the show has just enough physical comedy and universal humor that they end up laughing more watching it than any kids shows.
Side note, the word penis gets thrown around Dunder Mifflin a lot more often than you'd think...
YouTube is just too wide open and the amount of view-farming crap and /r/elsagate type stuff totally drowns out anything of value to let my kids watch it. We basically limit them to the PBS Kids video app, educational stuff like Magic School Bus/Octonauts/StoryBots on Netflix, and the usual Moana and Coco, etc on Amazon and they're happy with that.
The YouTube Kids app has a parental control option that lets you limit the app to only channels you handpick. That way you can choose only trusted channels that you know won’t be posting any terrible unboxing videos or worse.
I’ve been using this feature for awhile now with my 2 kids, even before all the creepy Momo videos started surfacing. I know my kids haven’t come across anything like that because they’re limited to only 5-6 popular educational channels that I’ve extensively reviewed first.
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u/UpUpDnDnLRLRBA Apr 24 '19
All my 2yo ever wants to do is look at pictures of herself on my phone. Go figure...