Potential harms and benefits of allowing children to access and use YouTube

What do you think are the potential harms and benefits of allowing children to access and use YouTube, and how can parents and guardians mitigate the risks while maximizing the advantages?

Allowing children to access and use YouTube can have both potential harms and benefits. YouTube provides a wealth of educational and entertaining content that can help children learn new skills, explore their interests, and expand their knowledge. But according to the International AAAI conference proceedings:

 “YouTube’s algorithmic recommendation system regrettably suggests inappropriate content because some of it mimics or is derived from otherwise appropriate content”. [1]

To help parents impact YouTube and Tiktok feeds, we created Pastory. The main purpose of the app is to take advantage of the positive resources that popular platforms have to offer. With the help of AI (artificial intelligence) Pastory can change the YouTube and Tiktok feed according to parents’ preferences.

Not all content on YouTube can be useful for children. The main goal of parents in promoting safe Internet-space is to ensure that children consume quality educational content. This approach will allow them to get the most out of the videohosting. YouTube has a vast library of educational videos that can help children learn about various subjects. 

This approach minimises disadvantages and enriches the child’s information field with useful videos that help them learn necessary skills.

We have a few tips for you. To mitigate the risks while maximizing the advantages, parents and guardians can take the following steps:

1. Supervise your child’s YouTube use.
2. Set time limits.
3. Encourage critical thinking.
4. Engage with your child. Based on the content viewed, the Pastory app offers a variety of cooperative offline-activities to spend time with your child. It will also be a great opportunity for kids to review and consolidate what they have learned.