Social Question
Have you heard of "Surprise Egg" videos?
I just saw a TED talk about them and other similar videos. They are videos on YouTube that are specifically designed to keep children as young as 2 addicted. Specifically, surprise egg videos consist of a person (you only see their hands) opening different plastic eggs that contain toys inside. It plays on a very basic toddler desire to see what’s inside, especially if they are toys related to TV shows they like. The people who create these videos get paid based on views, of course, and some of them have millions of views, most of those views coming from children under 5.
Here’s the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9EKV2nSU8w&t=827s He also addresses how children can be exposed to disturbing, fetishy videos through a chain of connected videos via algorithm. i.e. these disturbing videos will contain things like “disney” in their titles to link them to the original videos, and kids will unwittingly view them with YouTube’s “autoplay” feature.
Parents use these videos to keep their kids quiet and docile and it’s quite effective. Of course if you try and take the screen away, they became rabid little monsters. At that point they’re totally addicted.
I’m not here to condemn any parents on Fluther. I’m just wondering: do your young children or young children you know spend hours on screens? Do they watch stuff like this?
It’s hard not to feel that this stuff is pure evil. I imagine it’s not easy to raise children these days and keep them away from screens, especially if you yourself are on them all day.
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