It鈥檚 a tired old argument when people say that today鈥檚 kids are having a childhood that is, in some way, worse than their own. It鈥檚 the source of a million tired images, shared by aunts online, of how kids aren鈥檛 making memories if they鈥檙e not doing some hobby they did when they were a kid.
And yet I鈥檓 going to indulge in it right now.
Let鈥檚 talk about television. I won鈥檛 argue that whatever cartoons I watched as a kid are better than modern cartoons. Kids shows often don鈥檛 hold up very well when you go back to them as an adult. No, I鈥檓 talking about the manner in which kids access their cartoons.
In my day, you had a television station with a set schedule that you had to deal with. They had a variety of shows, good and bad, which they aired for the kids, interspersed with toy commercials that were often more interesting than the shows themselves. As a kid, television had an end point - eventually cartoons would transition into something that was not a cartoon and thus bad.
With the rise of streaming replacing broadcast television, you don鈥檛 have the same setup. Instead, you get whatever show you want, whenever you want, which is great if you鈥檙e an adult with self-control, not so great if you鈥檙e just a kid who wants to watch cartoons all day. When I was a kid, that was impossible, you were forced to find new entertainment because you were fresh out of cartoons.
It鈥檚 on parents, of course, to set limits on screen time and things of that nature. But it鈥檚 also easier for parents to convince kids to stop watching TV when the TV isn鈥檛 made for you anymore.
It鈥檚 also easier to have limits on the amount of TV you watch when your TV weighs a million pounds and you can鈥檛 take it with you. Between phones and tablets TVs are everywhere.
The other problem is that a lot of kids are being entertained by YouTube, and that service has issues. Lots of those issues are inherent in the service鈥檚 design - it鈥檚 supposed to be something where anyone can put up any video. Great, for adults, who are going to change to some other video. Bad for kids who need some oversight into what they鈥檙e watching.
The main problem with the service comes down to what they suggest kids should watch. The weird vagaries of the YouTube algorithm, which has pushed Mariya Takeuchi鈥檚 Plastic Love to be one of the most popular songs on the service, mean that kids are pushed a lot of videos based on how they hit the algorithm. The result is that you get a bunch of weird cartoons where Spider-man and characters from Frozen meet in a toilet. They hit the algorithm, but they aren鈥檛 actually good choices for kids.
This isn鈥檛 a problem with many of the paid streaming services, which typically have a fenced-off kids area with appropriate content. And parents, being parents, can inevitably set limits.
I am not really nostalgic for the broadcast model so much as I miss how it designed in the limits. For all the talk about how kids need less 鈥渟creen time,鈥� it only becomes an issue now because kids don鈥檛 have a reason to put down the screen.
