Why Is Your Child’s Brain Obsessed With the Surprise Egg and Slime Video?
My 4 year old daughter enjoys watching some great kids shows including Noddy Toyland Detective , Ruby’s Studio , Julie’s Greenroom and so many Daniel Tiger , but every now and then she asks to watch YouTube on her iPad or phone and when I do she smiles and that sly glint appears in her eyes. Oh, I’ll think about it. Where is it going today?
The world of YouTube content for kids is like a Bizarro abyss – preschoolers devouring manic, pointless clips while parents flip through, puzzled and sometimes a little disturbed, I wonder what it is? You click on one seemingly harmless Peppa Pig video, pass the phone, and 12 minutes later they cut the rabbit hole withDaddy’s Fingers chorus in all languages, glistening slime, surprise eggs for days, and adultsplaying with dolls and talking in high voices ( “Oh, you poop again? So dirty!” ).
And when they look, something strange happens to the children. Once, when my daughter was younger, we let her watch YouTube on a long car ride. When I felt that she had had enough and picked up the phone, she cried for the next half hour, shouting: “Slime and children! Slime and babies! SLIME AND CHILDREN! “Super creepy.
With kids’ videos among the most viewed content in YouTube history, academics, video makers, and marketers are struggling to figure out why young viewers are so obsessed with them. The Atlantic goes deep into how the videos that preschoolers click on can tell a lot about their development and psyche.
It turns out that the reasons young children are so fascinated by YouTube videos and the YouTube Kids app are not entirely surprising, but now you know you know what’s going on in their brains when they sit with their mouths open while you hear again. : “Mommy finger, Mommy finger, where are you?” (I’m sorry.)
They like to be in charge. If you have a baby, you already know that. YouTube’s programs on demand give them a sense of free will.
They have short attention spans. “It’s kind of like a quick channel scan,” Michael Rich, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Media and Child Health, told The Atlantic . Short videos are just mind candy.
They like it when something is closed and unfolded. Take a look at the surprise eggs craze.
They are attracted to bright colors. They may be fascinated by the weather map if it looks like a cartoon.
They like the familiar. Yep, your child, at least for now, is likely to prefer the horribly drawn singing elephant to your favorite beautiful Pixar movie with a complex plot. Young children “are prone to focusing on relatively narrow interests, “ writes Adrienne LaFrance of The Atlantic .
They like to watch the same thing over and over again, trying to figure it out. They absorb all this repetition, and the ability to learn new things is rewarded.
There is no consensus on whether children’s content on YouTube is good or bad for development. At this point, most experts say to treat it like cake – small portions are usually okay, but it’s better to give them something more substantial, like real toys.