By: Kate Gruetter

Editor-in-Chief

Growing up, I had restricted access to the internet and looking back, I truly appreciate my parents for setting this boundary. Though I slightly despised them for it at the time, as I have gotten older, I have realized more and more that the internet is truly a very dangerous place mentally, socially, and psychologically. My own experience, coupled with various discussions and deep dives, makes me believe that kids should not have access to any sort of unregulated internet usage, but more specifically, access to YouTube, as it causes them to idolize other children and distorts their sense of reality. 

Because YouTube’s content is user-created, meaning it caters to every viewer and what they enjoy, a lot of children watching YouTube gravitate towards watching other children or childish videos. One of the most popular examples of this is twelve year old Ryan Kaji, known for his channel Ryan’s World, where he reviews toys and plays games with his family. However, Ryan’s videos have inspired a lot of controversy as viewers question if being such a prominent social media presence at such an early age is affecting Ryan’s well-being. The Children’s Media Foundation conducted a study called the “YTK Study” that looked into the attitudes of children after watching one of Ryan’s videos. In the study, surveyors asked children a series of questions about Ryan and his life, like: “Where do you think Ryan gets all his toys from? Why do you think Ryan makes videos like this? Would you like to be Ryan?” The viewer’s reactions revealed the distorted reality that comes with perceiving other people on public platforms, with one child responding that they liked Ryan “Because he’s perfect,” and another replying “no” after an interviewer asked if Ryan ever gets sad about anything. 

The findings of this study display that when kids are watching other children on YouTube, they fail to grasp the complexity of what they are seeing on the screen, which makes streaming platforms dangerous for them to access. Children begin to adopt unrealistic or distorted viewpoints of childhood and reality, which can cause confusion as they mature. 

Additionally, a lot of children watch certain activities on YouTube instead of performing them themselves, causing children to lose a sense of reality and, to a certain extent, live vicariously through the “kid-fluencers” that they watch. In the study mentioned above, a surveyor asked a kid, “Do you like watching Ryan because he gets to do lots of fun things or do you watch because you want to do the things yourself,” to which the five year old responded, “Me. I want to do it.” YouTube has begun to act as a second reality for kids, where they can watch videos of other children, in this case Ryan, doing activities they enjoy, instead of just doing them themselves. This continues the alarming argument that access to YouTube, especially videos made for children, distorts a child’s sense of reality. Kids become disengaged from the real world and also lose a sense of empathy and emotional maturity. 

Children should not have unlimited and unrestricted access to YouTube, even YouTube Kids, until they are mature enough to understand what they are watching. Children who believe that Ryan “creates every toy” should not be watching these videos, as they are losing a sense of reality and being denied the more social and emotional aspects of childhood. 

(Sources: Children’s Media Foundation, NY Times, YouTube)