Through a Child’s Eyes

Article by: Jade Leon / Graphic by: Adriel Malaca

This past summer, a friend and I started a project to create theater arts accessible to youth across our community. To gather public opinion, we made a survey that was given to parents, older siblings, or anyone at all, with a young person between the ages of three and eight in their lives. With questions such as “What does your young person find funny?” Of course, we received silly faces as a common answer. However, the most interesting response came from the question, “What's your young person's favorite form of entertainment?” The most popular answer revealed to be YouTube at 70%. Compared to books, TV shows, and movies, YouTube won in astounding numbers. This shows that our youth are growing and taught to become accustomed to the surrounding digital age of media and the existing, at the ready, algorithms.

This is further supported by the fact that YouTube is reported to be the most popular source of entertainment for children, especially for children eight and younger (CommonSenseMedia.Org). Not YouTube Kids, straight YouTube. Despite YouTube Kids being a targeted children's platform with options for more specific parental controls. The reality is that YouTube is more popular with children compared to YouTube Kids (KidsScope.digital). With YouTube, children and the platform have free rein. But with YouTube Kids, you need an adult to even make a profile. It all comes down to accessibility and ease.

In addition to the standard YouTube algorithm, it’s important to acknowledge the popularity behind short-form video content, such as YouTube Shorts and TikTok. These forms of content exist as compulsive and engaging for anyone, but especially children. Children who further lack proper media literacy of certain content. The structure of short-form video content is addictive and leads to disrupted attention control, emotional dysfunction, and increased anxiety (MedRixIV.org). So, imagine the impact on young, vulnerable, and moldable minds. Long-term, we do not know what the effects will include, as we are living in a developing digital age. We are unfortunately living experiments, and to prevent the undesirable, we must acknowledge the power of technology around us to aid our youth.

To better understand how media platforms present themselves to presuming children, I went undercover. This included creating a completely new profile on YouTube (as it is more popular with children) with no previous information, and from there interacting with commonly well-known children's topics of interest. Remaining as a guest, starting from scratch, and letting the algorithm reveal itself, what would YouTube curate and target for a profile that is being presented as a child? The results were shocking and disturbing.

In less than five minutes, the platform took me from a popular kids' show to kids' games to popular kids' AI “brainrot” content, to graphic content that was depicting kids' characters in lewd and inappropriate videos. What’s especially interesting is that YouTube's algorithm knew in some capacity that my profile was presenting as a child. As it pushed out and gave me more children's videos, including children-oriented targeted ads. Which is even more interesting, as these ads were literally for kids' games and kids' movies. They know their audience, and that's what makes this even more disturbing. Yet, in the end, it all disgustingly comes down to profit. No child should be advertised to. Children aren’t able to comprehend what's being advertised, and they can be used as a money bank. It’s unethical.

All of this content was mixed in with YouTubers and videos that were also on YouTube Kids. It was a short matter of time before my page was consumed by disguised, inappropriate children's content that was mostly sexualizing these children's characters. With AI acting as a gateway, with confusing videos that let alone a child would not be able to comprehend. A large majority of these offered videos posed as a wolf in sheep's clothing, and that is part of the problem. A child isn’t able to differentiate what's right and wrong. A child isn’t able to understand why their favorite TV character is nearly nude. A child isn’t responsible for the overwhelming amount of AI content on their feed.

With experiment and thought, I believe that YouTube has the potential to be a platform for kids. There are good children's YouTubers who create adequate educational content. There are parents who need well-deserved breaks. Also, it is important to acknowledge that YouTube is free. The problems lie within YouTube's algorithm, advertisements benefiting from children, and the lack of regulation on content and AI. I believe that for the integrity of this article, it’s important to acknowledge my role. I’m not a parent, and I do not know the ins and outs of children's media regulation. I state this all as a young person who's grown up with technology, the rise of algorithms, and who's seen what the internet is capable of. It’s impossible to cancel out the internet in children's lives, but it is possible to aid, protect, and teach. What must be encouraged is media literacy and internet safety. By seeing through a child's eyes on the most popular children's platform, it has been revealed what the average child may come across.

Works Cited

Kidscorp. “YouTube vs. YouTube Kids: Reaching the Right Audience Effectively and Safely.” Kidscorp Digital, Kidscorp, https://kidscorp.digital/kidscorp-youtube-or-youtube-kids/

Smith, Aaron, Skye Toor, and Patrick van Kessel. “Many Turn to YouTube for Children’s Content, News, How-To Lessons.” Pew Research Center, 7 Nov. 2018. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/11/07/many-turn-to-youtube-for-childrens-content-news-how-to-lessons/

Common Sense Media. “The 2025 Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Zero to Eight.” Common Sense Media, 26 February. 2025, https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-2025-common-sense-census-media-use-by-kids-zero-to-eight

Xie, Jin, et al. “The Effect of Short-Form Video Addiction on Undergraduates’ Academic Procrastination: A Moderated Meditation Model.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol.14, 15 December 2025, https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1298361/full

Zhu, Chengwei, Yiru Jiang, Hanning Lei, Haitao Wang, and Cai Zhang. “The Relationship between Short-Form Video Use and Depression among Chinese Adolescents: Examining the mediating Roles of Need Gratification and Short-Form Video Addiction.” 26 April 2024, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11066677/#:~:text=4.1.,as%20emphasizing%20students'%20psychological%20needs.

Sara Arouch, Dan Edgcumbe, Sally Pezaro, Ksenija da Silva, “The Impact of Short-Form Video Use on Cognitive and Mental Health Outcomes: A Systematic Review”, medRxiv, 8 August 2025, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.27.25334540v2.full