First, help them discover real connections, with their friends, family, volunteer work, or ever work with animals.
Introduce them to good content; art, music, plays, poetry, novels, film, etc. that actually make them feel or discover something.
Help them to think critically about the media they consume and they won’t want entertainment to zone out to, but something that they can actually enrich themselfs with.
You can’t and any attempt to do so will only entice them.
I agree that if you completely take away their agency that it only makes the slop look more attractive but I also disagree that sentiment that “you can’t”. Technically it’s true. But that doesn’t mean we ought to give in to slop as parents. Low effort slop has been around since before AI. Find ways to teach the importance of genuine creative content and cultivate a preference for the real creative works with your children.
In the narrow context of AI slop images it just such a nothing issue. There are so many insanely hard challenges to parenting that worry about you kid seeing shitty art isnt one of them.
You disagree with the sentiment that you can’t. LMAO how to tell me you have never revised a kid without telling me you have never raised a kid.
No reason to downvote this comment. You can’t keep your kids away from everything you think is harmful. It’s also not good for them, because even if you manage to do so, they won’t be able to properly handle it, when they’re grown up.
Explain to them what is what, what aspects about it are harmful and how to recognize if something was generated with AI or not.
Parenting isn’t about shielding your kids from everything you think is bad for them, but about preparing them to handle real life and it’s challenges.
I don’t allow unsupervised watching of YouTube and all other platforms are forbidden.
Their computers are in a public space where I can see what they are doing and watching.
I also do not allow screens in their bedrooms the occasional exception being for homework not only if they can’t get it done in a common room.
You can’t unless you block social media which includes YouTube. At the end of the day, with my 8yo, I’m taking the approach of using parental controls to limit exposure to content he shouldn’t see and then doing my best to ensure he knows how to spot AI videos in their current state.
My son is still young, almost 8, so I’m speaking for near that age level. He doesn’t get unrestricted access to YouTube. If he’s watching YouTube, it’s with one of us present and helping him navigate it. He always wants to watch the video that’s the lowest quality shit just based on the thumbnail, because they have thumbnails that stick out. I’ve taught him about “low quality” content and we’ve watched a couple so he could understand what I meant. Now, when he wants to watch something like that, I say “no, that’s going to be low quality,” he seems to understand and we move on to find something else.
Eventually, I’m going to let him navigate YouTube alone sometimes, and then go back and look at his watch history to see how things are going. He doesn’t know watch history is a thing, nor will I ever tell him. If things go off the rails, we will guide them back to the rails slowly and nonjudgmentally
That said, we were at a restaurant the other day and a woman was there with her baby and a friend. She set that infant in a high chair with AI slop on her phone right in its face. The kid definitely didn’t disturb her conversation with her friend, because it looked like a zombie. Godspeed, child
I’m yet to encounter this really, my kids (twins) are only 2. However, this is the answer as I understand it - limit access in terms of time and content, and relax those limitations as appropriate.
That said, I’m going to struggle. Everyone needs to find the right balance for their own home, but I suspect I will lean more towards allowing less access to more curated content than most parents. I just can’t abide the kind of brain rotting content that’s available. I can’t stand advertising of any kind. I know this will make me unpopular - or less “cool” than other parents, but I’m hoping that I can make up for it in other ways.
PBS Kids is a great option for littles! Free, no commercials, and supportive of social/emotional development (Reminder to set up a monthly donation to your local PBS station!). With the PBS Kids app, we’d often download a few episodes of something like Daniel Tiger or Wild Kratts for road trips
We rarely watch YouTube together, most of the time he’s watching a series of some kind through Netflix or Paramount. Trollhunters, Gravity Falls, Henry Danger, stuff like that. His only exposure to commercials is during football games, whereas I can still sing over 100 jingles from my childhood.
It’s still always better to limit/avoid screentime…
Yeah this is going to be part of my strategy.
Increased availability of better quality content, less reliance on algorithms serving up the next thing.
I’ve taught him about “low quality” content and we’ve watched a couple so he could understand what I meant. Now, when he wants to watch something like that, I say “no, that’s going to be low quality,” he seems to understand and we move on to find something else.
Honestly never thought about how I would teach my (hypothetical, future) kid this stuff. I have the benefit of a decade of experience learning how youtube works and living through the clickbait endemic.
I guess that’s why it’s so important for parents to navigate YouTube together with them. My first experience of YT was also watching cool stuff like VSauce and Lego animations with my family.That said, we were at a restaurant the other day and a woman was there with her baby and a friend. She set that infant in a high chair with AI slop on her phone right in its face. The kid definitely didn’t disturb her conversation, because it looked like a zombie. Godspeed, child
Sometimes you see toddlers who are just playing blaring loud noises from tablets at restaurants. You also see adults&teenagers doing that on trains… I guess I would point them out to my kid afterwards and say “that’s what happens when you watch too mcuh brainrot!”
That said, we were at a restaurant the other day and a woman was there with her baby and a friend. She set that infant in a high chair with AI slop on her phone right in its face. The kid definitely didn’t disturb her conversation, because it looked like a zombie.
This should be illegal, because it is harming the child. It should be viewed the same as giving it alcohol to keep it quiet.
I’m going for the hail mary pass and taking the stance that we need to send our youth back down into the mines.
They yearn for it!
We do already, it’s called Minecraft.
This is good parenting. You can’t always be there to guide them or restrict them, nor should you want to be. You instead help them understand how to navigate the world themselves smartly. This is true for anything, not just what they see on the internet.
nor should you want to be
Found the part most parents struggle with!
He always wants to watch the video that’s the lowest quality shit just based on the thumbnail, because they have thumbnails that stick out.
There’s an add-on by the same guy who makes sponsorbock that replaces thumbnails (and video tittles) for more more accurate ones, maybe you want to try that.
(Disclaimer: The add-on itself is free software (as in freedom) but the developer added the restriction that after one hour trial you can either pay or wait 24h and then you can use it without restriction. It’s an interesting model.)
Damn good answer. Proud of you
Remember that watch history has the largest impact on what recommended videos will appear in his feed.
Curating the watch history is insanely effective, I have done it for a decade and it has helped me keep my feed 92% politics free, and 98% toxic masculinity free, I never knew about Tate until I started seeing reddit posts about what a terrible person he is.
I would actually show him this when he is old enough.
My strategy about this was to remove any content I don’t specifically want recommendations from, but has shifted to a more permissive stance where I will focus on removing videos that specifically harms my recommendations.
Definitely the case! I’m not always on top of this myself, but I do go in and remove anything that may poison my recommendations. At this point, I just get plants, history, and a splash of comedy. Thank you for bringing this to the fore!
Look into DeArrow (by same creators of SponsorBlock), which offers crowdsourced “de-clickbaited” video titles and thumbnails.
While it’s nice to just avoid the clickbait while enjoying potentially genuinely good videos, I ended up uninstalling the extension. I want to explicitly avoid clickbait, and focus on encouraging and supporting creators that don’t use it. Also, if I end up unknowingly interacting with too many clickbait-y videos, I worry the algorithm will push me more of that.
Unfortunately this is an increasingly unviable strategy, because even “good” creators have started using clickbaity titles and thumbnails, even if their content has remained the same. Some have even retroactively changed the titles/thumbnails of their older videos to this style.
Clickbait is engineered by behavioural scientists to be as addictive as possible, and has been proven to trigger similar neural pathways to other addictions, such as drug or gambling.
Basically every creator with a shred of self awareness has admitted that they hate creating clickbait thumbnails, titles, and phrases like smash that like button and subscribe; they end up doing it anyway because A/B testing with randomised thumbnails and titles clearly show that they work.
The live A/B testing in particular obscures whether a creator employs clickbait or not - you may be under the impression that a certain creator has remained principled, when in reality you were just allocated to the control group by chance.
I feel that it’s one of those situations where the game is rigged, and the only way to “win” is to change the rules yourself.
So, basically a future “people of walmart” 20 years before it happens. So like an orgin story for idiocy.
Unpopular opinion: I have a second phone logged into my kid’s YT account. I train the algorithm while he’s sleeping.
It takes a significant time, and YouTube doesn’t have good options for blocking content, but it helps keep out the worst of the brainrot.
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You can’t, it is not possible, until parental controls include something about filtering AI, anyway it’s like the cat and mouse one day an AI filter came out the next day an anti-AI filter came out and so on.
All platforms are full of AI now, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram have always been since filter stuff.
Social engineers are hard working people.
I think the best approach could be to teach children to recognize AI stuff when they see it but it is hard with the actual educational system anyway the government will not spend a dime on it. About older people a big amount is just doomed.
In a socialist country, would AI be discouraged for video-making?
As far as I know in North Korea the government can see what you do on your phone even without being a kid, so I believe not just that so even they will use AI to catch you doing it or another “evil” stuff faster.
In a socialist country, I would guess that there’s much less incentive to pump out slop. So if you make videos with AI, it’s more likely that you’ve actually put some thought into it and are making something of actual value to someone.
While I suspect a lot of lemmy would say yes just by virtue of having both socialist politics and an anti-AI stance, strictly speaking I don’t think AI inheritly has anything to do one way or the other with socialism (though the way and by whom it is owned probably would be different), so really that would depend more on how the culture of a given country treated that tech than it’s economic system.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Possible because people want to ignore their lack of control in raising children.
The only method is to teach them what ai slop is to teach them why to avoid it.
Anyone who is just trying to control it via bans are creating a situation where their children will hide their access to ai slop.
Other kids parents do not care and those kids will happily share their unrestricted access with any kids with the most restricted environment.
It’s surprising how easily some adults forget all the random ways they got around their own parents rules when they were the children.
They think if they prohibit all internet access until college it will work… really? We are at 2026 you can buy a $30 smartphone with internet access at Walmart.
If you want to control what your child sees you have to control what your child sees. There is no shortcut. You either shut off the methods for the companies to feed slop to your child or you curate the things that come in via those methods. You cannot automate it.
Personally, I’d shut off basically any social media or algorithmic feeds for the kid. They don’t need that corporate reality-distortion during the years in which you are trying to develop them into a functional human.
Raise them in the woods with no access to the outside world until the age of forty.
If you don’t show them better content, they can’t know the difference. Watch YT with them, but put on good stuff made by humans. There’s plenty of that. Also consider accounts - once they have their own account they will tumble down the shit hole that is the algorithm. If you let them use your account, they will have a better established base, and you will easily see what they are watching. If this doesn’t work for you, created a moderated, shared account that you use and populate with good algorithm juju.
As a parent, screen time was a mistake.
I don’t, I don’t gatekeep their entertainment. I do critically discuss the content with them though.
IMHO it’s more important to teach them to critically analyse what they consume.
This is what my parents did, it helped a lot. Media literacy is important!
Do you have any kids’ media literacy edu content you like?
I just talk through it with them. Get them to think about who made it, why they made it, what’s it saying, where was it made, who is it made for, how theyfound it, what they thought of it, which situations it would be appropriate… and picking it apart.
It’s a tried and true method. Mine can’t really listen to anything long winded that isn’t terribly exciting, or somehow related to Minecraft.
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Only whitelist content or creators you personally have vetted with apps like YouTube kids, jellyfin, etc until you can trust their own decision making. Then share an account so that you can see watch history (and hopefully your good media choices influenced their tastes as you would share an algorithm)
My kid doesnt have internet access
As in, his pc in his room has no internet
When he plays online in the living room he isnt allowed to go to the browser unless i am there to tell him what to type or which site to go on
And he has no smartphone etc, just a dumb ass nokia
My kid is 11
You can’t, and shouldn’t try. Spending time in moderation is more important, so limit that. Sure when they’re little you have to open restrictions over time but keep the focus on recognizing ai slop and understanding the issues with it.
Sooner than you think, they’re watching is out of your control so it quickly becomes critical for them learn about
