Disable Autoplay of Children’s TV Shows
The countdown makes me gasp for breath every time. Ten seconds before the next episode of the show my daughter is watching. Nine seconds. 8. Seven. Six.
“Ok, turn it off!” I say across the room.
“The next one begins ,” says the child in a dizzying wave of rebellion.
Three. Two. One.
I rush to grab the remote and then hit the power button just in time *.
Video autoplay is meant to connect us to our screens – Tristan Harris, campaigner against the tech race to grab our attention, compares it to a “bottomless bowl,” citing research that shows you can trick people into eating more soup if you give them a bowl, which automatically refills itself. For parents, this makes it difficult to set a screen time limit. (“What? How are you already in Season 8?”) If you want to make sure your kids aren’t watching the endless stream of shows featuring a British family of pigs or a talking yellow sponge, regain your strength by turning the autoplay feature off. Here’s how to do it:
Netflix
As commenters Lirnev and Evan pointed out, to disable autoplay on your child’s profile, you must temporarily disconnect it from the child’s profile, change the autoplay setting, and then change it back to the child’s profile again. Here’s how to do it.
1) Log into your account .
2) In the “My Profile” section, click on “Profile Management”. Select your child’s profile.
3) Uncheck “Baby?” Save your changes. Click Finish.
4) Now select your child’s profile.
5) Log into your account. In the “My Profile” section, click “Playback Settings”.
6) Uncheck the “Automatically play next episode” checkbox.
7) Return to the “Profile Management” section, select your child’s profile, check the “Baby?” and save your changes. Your new autoplay settings should be in place.
Note. If you change the autoplay settings in a child’s profile, only that profile will be affected. If you want to change the settings for all profiles in your account, you will have to repeat the process for each of them.
Youtube
On the YouTube webpage, turn off the blue autoplay switch in the upper right corner above the Next video.
Amazon Prime Video
- Go to Prime Video settings .
- Turn off autoplay in the player settings .
Note. Autoplay for Prime Video is not available on Fire devices.
Hulu
On Hulu.com, click the gear icon on the video and under Autoplay, click Off. In the Hulu app, you can turn off autoplay in the settings.
* Of course, I can just turn off the TV as soon as a new episode starts, but I admit that I love the race. Oh little thrill.