Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Some kids will watch quantum mechanics lectures or knitting tutorials some of the time. But a lot of time is spent watching actual crap on youtube, which is kind of weaponised television

"Quantum mechanics lectures" are absolute trash if a child isn't particularly interested in them. Virtually anything they would choose themselves would be a better use of their time.

In my life I've learned about 8,000 times more by exploring my whimsical interests of the moment than through any forced lecture or involuntary project.

I'm certainly not talking about anything involuntary. Agency is the holy grail, isn't it? But I'd rather have no youtube than no agency.

Unsupervised Youtube does seem dangerous for kids. Youtube's algorithms lean heavily toward exploitative clown shit that seems guaranteed to make kids incredibly stupid. Within an hour of following suggested vids from quantum mechanics, a kid will end up at Logan Paul.

I'm assuming you actually believe the sentiment behind this — Why? Where did you first hear it, or from whom? What's your experience with Youtube search/recommendations, and how would you change it?

I've seen the stuff my niece and nephew gravitate to on Youtube. It's worse than an "ow my balls" parody. I had to sit down with my nephew and show him a slower longer video and the cool stuff in it; he got totally engrossed, but nobody had done that before.

Kids aren't designed by default to process complexity without a little help, while Youtube's algorithms are designed to allow professionals to exploit them at 80 second intervals with almost no interaction. It's the kind of thing Ray Bradbury would start a riot if he saw.