Is your child hooked to Youtube?
YouTube, is my favorite destination for anything and everything under the sun. Be it entertainment, information, general awareness or history, it has got everything. I am a fan, period!
Now since I am a parent, I also see lot of content at Youtube which is useful for my kid. In fact I encourage my child to use Youtube. Over the past few months I have seen my daughter get pretty comfortable with it and now she is like a 'child-pro' when it comes to using Youtube. However, I have also observed several things with Youtube which don't make me too happy. I definitely wish for a Kid's version of Youtube.
I would recommend other parents to watch out for the below mentioned things if they expose their children to the treasure trove called Youtube!
1. Inappropriate content
For every video meant for children, Youtube has tonnes of videos which are not suitable for them. Children are a curious lot, which makes them particularly receptive to lot of unwanted content. Constant Parents' supervision is the only full proof way of avoiding inappropriate content, like Porn or Violence.
2. Interlinked videos
Although search results & video recommendations are generally in kids genre, handful of recommendations end up being from irrelevant genres as well. Again in case of unsupervised usage, all the child needs is one bad recommendation to get sucked into the vast world of undesired videos.
3. Content quality
Often kids are watching cartoons and we as parents feel Ok. But there are numerous instances when the content of these cartoons is questionable. It confuses kids. This one time, my daughter started getting too attracted towards Monsters (commonly referred in the US for pre-school teachings), she would try to draw them everywhere. Her teacher called it out and asked me to check what she was getting exposed to. It wasnt a big incidence, but lack of active monitoring could end up confusing your kid about what is right-wrong, good-bad etc.
4. When to stop?
Even, if the kids are watching just the right content, once they start liking it on Youtube they want to see it all the time. Before you realize it becomes part of their routine. No food unless you give them Youtube etc. Because Youtube doesn't tell them - we are done, it is time to stop.
5. Ads and the journey outside youtube
Ads on Youtube are also pretty troublesome. Unless the parent is sitting next to the kid, they are extremely prone to getting lost in the world of internet after clicking on an ad. What follows is a series of hap-hazard clicks and reinitiating the Youtube app on tablet. Although my daughter learned how to cancel the ad popups and she is also pretty ok to restart the app, but still ads are nuisance we could do without when it comes to children.
Youtube is a necessity in today's digital world and has numerous benefits. However, I would love to see a kid's version of Youtube (by Youtube or some other education company) coming out sometime soon to address these points.
For all its goodness, YouTube has some obvious flaws when it comes to young kids. This is where our specialized application fills the gap.
- Prasad Ajinkya - Parent, blogger, gamer, coder & startup guy.
Enter Pedron...
It is designed to ensure kids get access to only select videos (& other content) that are appropriate for them to view. Parents can also set a time limit, to manage child's digital play time. As the videos are being carefully selected keeping the age of the kids in mind, the chances of all the possibilities stated above is completely eliminated. Besides Videos child can also play educational games within Pedron and it auto adjusts itself depending on child's performance and interests.
Try it now. Both, you and your child will love it.












