Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / YouTube Kids: Harmless Fun or Hidden Harm?

Transcript

YouTube Kids: Harmless Fun or Hidden Harm? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Today on
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  Speaker 1: the pod we step into a close inspection of what's
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  Speaker 1: happening on YouTube kids. What's it doing to our kids
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  Speaker 1: and their brains? Is it as good as YouTube tells us?
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  Speaker 1: Should we believe the pr or are there some problems
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  Speaker 1: with it? How much content is actually being consumed on
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  Speaker 1: YouTube per week? And a whole lot more. If you're
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  Speaker 1: concerned about your children and their consumption of YouTube, this
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  Speaker 1: is the podcast for you. More Next, stay with us. Hello,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. Real parenting solutions every
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  Speaker 1: single day in Australia's most doutloaded parenting podcast. We are
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  Speaker 1: Justin and Kylie Coulson very excited. Only four and a
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  Speaker 1: half five weeks till Christmas? Can you believe how fast
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  Speaker 1: that's happened?
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  Speaker 2: Can I just ask why you're excited?
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  Speaker 1: Because everyone gets to take a break, we get to
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  Speaker 1: slow down, we get laid by the pool, go to
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  Speaker 1: the beach, spend time with families, open presents, eat good food.
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  Speaker 2: So it actually has very little to do with Christmas itself.
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  Speaker 1: And just well, I'm excited brain as well. I mean
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  Speaker 1: I'm excited for it, but yes I'm excited for the break.
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  Speaker 1: I'm kind of dying for it. I feel like we're
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  Speaker 1: falling over the line. Feel like we're just going to
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  Speaker 1: get there anyway.
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  Speaker 2: It's been a big year.
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  Speaker 1: It's been a massive year. Today Kylie on the Pod,
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  Speaker 1: there was an article that appeared in the Sunday Times
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  Speaker 1: a couple of months ago grabbed my attention, written by
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  Speaker 1: a couple of former Google executives. A Google parent company
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  Speaker 1: of Google is Alphabet. They own YouTube as well. And
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  Speaker 1: these were some people who used to work for YouTube.
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  Speaker 1: They had kids, they stepped away from their Google YouTube roles,
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  Speaker 1: and as their kids are watching YouTube, they did a
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  Speaker 1: deep dive into what's showing up. And I just thought,
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  Speaker 1: with everything that's happening around social media and kids and
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  Speaker 1: access to platforms, this was a conversation that we need
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  Speaker 1: to have.
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  Speaker 2: So YouTube is not a playground I play and very
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  Speaker 2: much at all.
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  Speaker 1: No. So our daughter Emily, you walk into the living room,
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  Speaker 1: the TV's on, you can almost guarantee she's watching something
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  Speaker 1: on YouTube.
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  Speaker 2: So YouTube Kids is a different platform specifically designed for kids.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's meant to be a safe space for kids
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  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of well vulgar forces and.
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  Speaker 2: It tells you that it's for kids, makes you believe
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  Speaker 2: that that's what it would be.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, precisely precise, But what is actually on it? So
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  Speaker 1: what they tell us and what's actually there two totally
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  Speaker 1: different things. So if you were to read the the
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  Speaker 1: what would you call the spokesman's pr slop. This is
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  Speaker 1: what they would tell you, And this is actually what
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  Speaker 1: was written in the article. This is a direct quote.
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  Speaker 1: On YouTube Kids, we provide parents with robust controls to
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  Speaker 1: decide what content to make available, whether approving specific content,
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  Speaker 1: choosing from age appropriate categories, or the ability to block
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  Speaker 1: specific videos or channels. They're really big on community guidelines
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  Speaker 1: and making sure that kids are safe and getting access
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  Speaker 1: to high quality program on YouTube Kids. That's the PR spin.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so what's reality?
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  Speaker 1: So the reality is you've heard the term brain rot
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  Speaker 1: and at the moment everyone's talking about AI slop. But
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  Speaker 1: basically they would be the words that I think would
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  Speaker 1: best describe what is on YouTube Kids. This is what
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking about.
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  Speaker 2: Oh look at this.
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  Speaker 3: This is a really big wheel entire. Whoa, it's silver
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  Speaker 3: and black. Oh wow, this is a big one. Oh
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  Speaker 3: something's peaking through. It's a chair with a teddy bear face,
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  Speaker 3: how cute?
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  Speaker 2: Please? Who lease? Thing? Was my fine? Okay?
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  Speaker 1: So I've unfortunately seen enough of YouTube Kids either interrupting
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  Speaker 1: Emily and seeing what she's watching and just saying you
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  Speaker 1: need to turn this rubbish off, or reading and coming
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  Speaker 1: across the work of others. In a nutshell, what I
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  Speaker 1: would say is this, there's a whole lot of promotional
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  Speaker 1: and commercialized stuff around toys and sugar and garbage and slop.
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  Speaker 1: Most of the programming, literally most of the program has
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  Speaker 1: no narrative arc. There's mistimed dubbing of the audio over
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  Speaker 1: the characters, shallow content. In a nutshell, I would call
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  Speaker 1: it total rubbish. I don't want to be too rude
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  Speaker 1: about it, so I'm trying to be careful about what
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  Speaker 1: I say. Total rubbish is probably the softest that I
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  Speaker 1: can come up with. And he's what the people who
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  Speaker 1: wrote this article. Stephanie Thompson, she wrote this. She said
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  Speaker 1: that she sat down and watched what her child was
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  Speaker 1: watching on YouTube Kids, and the video that she watched
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  Speaker 1: on this particular day made her pay attention. In it,
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  Speaker 1: the brother tricks his sister into thinking she's gained weight,
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  Speaker 1: visibly upset the little girl changes into a skimpy workout
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  Speaker 1: outfit to do star jumps and later turns down a
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  Speaker 1: sound and which in favor of I played it for
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  Speaker 1: all carrot sticks before heading to her bedroom to weigh herself. Stephanie,
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  Speaker 1: the mum who's writing this article, says, I was horrified
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  Speaker 1: both at what we were watching and myself for letting
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  Speaker 1: my impressionable daughters access it. How was it? I wondered
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  Speaker 1: that this type of content was being promoted on a
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  Speaker 1: platform marketed as family friendly, and what else had they
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  Speaker 1: watched that had flown under my radar? And I think
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  Speaker 1: this is the thing with much of what's on YouTube,
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  Speaker 1: is that you could watch it and say, oh, well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean.
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  Speaker 2: There's no swearing, there's no sex, there's no nudity, there's yes,
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  Speaker 2: all of the big themes that you'd be concerned.
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  Speaker 1: It's clean content, it's light and at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the day, does it really matter if kids are watching
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  Speaker 1: somebody who's suddenly worried about the way because somebody made
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  Speaker 1: a fat joke. But I think while you can shrug
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  Speaker 1: it off and say let's just deal with it, I
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  Speaker 1: think at a deeper level this is emblematic of problems
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  Speaker 1: with what's there? Do we really want our four year
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  Speaker 1: old or our five year old or our six year
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  Speaker 1: old watching that kind of content and embedding in their psyche,
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  Speaker 1: understanding that this is the way that people treat one
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  Speaker 1: another and this is the way that we're supposed to
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  Speaker 1: monitor ourselves and navigate our lives.
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  Speaker 2: You think about a two year old to three year
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  Speaker 2: old to four year old and how quickly they pick
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  Speaker 2: up catch phrases from their favorite cartoon shows. Right, So
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  Speaker 2: they're learning by rote. They're learning by mimicking and parrotying
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  Speaker 2: everything that they hear and see, and at such an
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  Speaker 2: impressionable age, they're mimicking things before they even understand what
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  Speaker 2: it is they're saying or doing.
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  Speaker 1: It's not all bad, though, I really need to emphasise
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  Speaker 1: it's not all bad. After the break, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: tell you why it's not, and then we'll talk about
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  Speaker 1: potential solutions so that parents can feel good about what
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  Speaker 1: their kids are watching.
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  Speaker 2: You're back.
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  Speaker 1: This is The Happy Family's podcast. Thanks so much for
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: joining us. If you're enjoying the pod and you're getting
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  Speaker 1: value out of it, please share it with your friends,
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• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and review. We love those ratings and reviews. They make
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the podcast more accessible to other people and really really
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  Speaker 1: helps to get the word out about the pod. So Kylie,
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  Speaker 1: YouTube Kids isn't all bad. There's some really great content
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  Speaker 1: on there. Stephanie, the author of the Sunday Times article,
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  Speaker 1: says that around the age of four, after reading a
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  Speaker 1: Lift the Flap history book in the local library, my
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  Speaker 1: eldest daughter developed a morbid fascination with the Bubonic Plague.
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  Speaker 1: Her endless curiosity quickly exhausted my limited grasp of fourteenth
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  Speaker 1: century history. But I knew YouTube would have the answers.
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  Speaker 1: Sure enough, I found what seemed like an age appropriate
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  Speaker 1: video that taught her everything she needed to know about
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  Speaker 1: the Black Death. She watched it repeatedly for months until
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  Speaker 1: the next obsession took over, which was Egyptian mummies. But
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  Speaker 1: it's really important to note here that she's watching the
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  Speaker 1: same video over and over and over again to learn
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  Speaker 1: about that one thing. If you want to find something
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  Speaker 1: great on YouTube or YouTube kids, you probably can find it.
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  Speaker 1: The difficulty is that that intentional kind of use is
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  Speaker 1: not how most people use it. Most people use it
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  Speaker 1: as a babysitter. They sit the kids in front of it.
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  Speaker 1: The kids find something like Coco melon or pepper pig
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  Speaker 1: or whatever it is, and at the end of an episode,
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  Speaker 1: the algorithm starts to make recommendations for more content that
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  Speaker 1: the children might watch. And that is unintentional viewing. The
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  Speaker 1: intentional style is simply not reflective of how people use it.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any data on this or not,
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  Speaker 2: but how much your kids watching?
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  Speaker 1: So I don't know exact numbers when it comes to kids,
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  Speaker 1: but this is what I can tell you about YouTube. Generally,
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  Speaker 1: YouTube is the world's number one streaming platform and eclipses
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  Speaker 1: Netflix and all the other streaming platforms combined. So you
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  Speaker 1: can get Netflix and Prime and Disney and Apple and
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  Speaker 1: Binge and stand and whatever else you can think of,
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  Speaker 1: paramount whatever you can combine all of those. I'm talking
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  Speaker 1: Netflix and the rest, and YouTube still gets more hours
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  Speaker 1: viewed per day than all of them combined, well because
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  Speaker 1: of the algorithm, because of the short form content. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: it's really interesting because I managed to find some stats
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  Speaker 1: on this. The average viewing session is about forty minutes
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  Speaker 1: on YouTube. They do fifty percent of all global live streams.
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  Speaker 1: They have this this this flawed me. Over one billion
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  Speaker 1: hours of YouTube content is consumed daily, one billion hours, Kylie.
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  Speaker 1: If you convert that into years, and I've just plugged
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  Speaker 1: this into the computer while I've been talking, that's one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fourteen thousand, one hundred and fifty five years.
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  Speaker 1: That means every single day, one hundred and fourteen thousand
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  Speaker 1: years of content is consumed on YouTube alone. That doesn't
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  Speaker 1: include TikTok and all the social media platforms, that's just YouTube.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred and one hundred and fourteen thousand years of
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  Speaker 1: content is consumed daily. What a waste of human potential.
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  Speaker 2: I was just thinking that. I mean, like you, could
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  Speaker 2: you imagine if all of those hours were clocked up
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  Speaker 2: to productive.
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  Speaker 1: Being productive, meaningful, it's.
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  Speaker 2: Just experience how that would change mental health? And Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that blows. I'm just staggered.
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  Speaker 1: There's one more step that I want to share with you, Kylie.
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  Speaker 1: YouTube's total revenue for twenty twenty four. I know that
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  Speaker 1: we're nearly at the end of twenty twenty five now,
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  Speaker 1: but total revenue for twenty twenty four fifty four billion dollars.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not surprised that many hours viewed.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's subscription revenue plus advertising revenue. The advertising
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  Speaker 1: revenue came in about thirty six billion, which means there's
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  Speaker 1: another eighteen Sorry I can't do maths here, fifteen ish.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just going to leave it at that. Fifteen sixteen seventy, No,
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  Speaker 1: eighteen billion. It's another eighteen billion dollars in subscription revenue,
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  Speaker 1: which is just astonishing, absolutely absolutely astonishing thirty six billion
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  Speaker 1: dollars in advertising. But why wouldn't they when there's a
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  Speaker 1: billion hours of content every single day on YouTube, which
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  Speaker 1: includes YouTube kids. Our children are part of that number,
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  Speaker 1: and I think that that's an indictment on all of us,
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  Speaker 1: especially when you look at the slop that it is.
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  Speaker 2: So will viewing be affected by the social media band
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  Speaker 2: that's coming out?
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  Speaker 1: Okay, at this point, there's still no clarification on that,
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  Speaker 1: but the clock is ticking. We're less than a month
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  Speaker 1: away from it, and i'd say we'll find out pretty soon.
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  Speaker 1: At this point, YouTube looks like it will be included.
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  Speaker 1: So if you can't have a YouTube account, that would
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  Speaker 1: probably include a YouTube kids count, because the whole idea
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  Speaker 1: of not having an account, not having a profile, is
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  Speaker 1: to make sure that you can't be algorithmically followed and
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  Speaker 1: have those suggestions made. So my prediction is that YouTube
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  Speaker 1: Kids will be blocked, or at least kids won't be
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  Speaker 1: able to have an account. I don't know if they'll
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  Speaker 1: actually block or take down the service in Australia. I
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  Speaker 1: can't be sure about that, but we should be so lucky.
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  Speaker 1: And here's the thing. YouTube as a commercial enterprise is
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  Speaker 1: not going to police it. They're not policing it. They're
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  Speaker 1: going to say this stuff is all in harmony and
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  Speaker 1: it's consistent with our community standards. And when you're getting
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  Speaker 1: a billion hours daily consumed, they're winning. Parents shouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: to police it. I don't think parents know how to do.
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  Speaker 1: It's too hard. But the quality of programming. I've said
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  Speaker 1: this a thousand times. Turn on the ABC app and
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  Speaker 1: let your kids watch ABC Kids. The content there is
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  Speaker 1: vastly superior to anything that you're going to get onto YouTube.
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  Speaker 1: We should be so lucky that the social media minimum
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  Speaker 1: age legislation will come in and include YouTube Kids. That's
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  Speaker 1: my hope. Anyway, That's all I wanted to share on
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  Speaker 1: the pod today. I just thought it was an important
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  Speaker 1: conversation for us to have as a highlight just to
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  Speaker 1: remind parents YouTube kids is not serving your children well
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  Speaker 1: and there's a whole lot of reasons why you want
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  Speaker 1: to get your kids doing something other than being on
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  Speaker 1: YouTube Kids. I'll link to the Sunday Times article in
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  Speaker 1: the show notes so that you can have a look
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  Speaker 1: at it if you're interested in more. The Happy Families
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  Speaker 1: Podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mim
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  Speaker 1: Hammonds provides research, admin and other support. Thanks so much
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  Speaker 1: for listening and if you want to join us again tomorrow,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: We've got irrational fears being discussed with one of our
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: tricky questions on the Happy Families Podcast