[2020-3030]

Thanks for posting this article and it is indeed disturbing. It looks like there is just an insane amount of mind scrambling content that nobody should let themselves or their children experience. Given the Medium author's informal but useful initial analysis, this seems like a ripe topic for a formal psychological and technological analysis by some poor dissertation student or group of students who could survive the content and uncover much more about the origins, intent, extent, and consequences of this type of media.

[joe_the_user]

I'm reading the article and trying to figure out exactly where the horrible "mind scrambling" is happening.

The article seems to say "back when I was a kid, my parent entertained me with contentless saccharine trip from sources we trusted (Disney et al) but now contentless saccharine trip is autogenerated (duh duh duh) and who knows what effect that is going to have on 'developing brains'"

And would suspect, contrawise, that if there's a problem, it began at the point when the TV became the primary babysitter for modern children and things escalating to youtube is a step but a less significant step than this.

Edit: OK, the complaint is video moving from simplistic saccharine junk to the same thing with violence. I get that this is the step that disturbs parents lazy/busy enough to consign child rearing to video but controlling enough to think kids will parrot whatever they see. I would still see consigning kid-hood activity to video as where the damage comes. But maybe "that's just me"

[colanderman]

Disney movies generally makes sense and have some logic rooted in the real world. Yes there are talking animals and magic but the stories ultimately relate to the human experience.

I think the problem with the crap the author finds is that – it is nonsensical. These videos addict kids by triggering their innate desire to seek out novel/scary situations and explore them. This instinct exists so kids learn about the real world around them, as quickly as possible. But when kids watch videos with no sense, no logic, and no relation to the real world, their brains learn and reinforce nonsense. It delays their development while reducing their attention for more wholesome – and more boring – exploration of the real world.

Kids' brains are amazingly plastic, they have amazing memories, and they ruminate sometimes for months on novel/strange concepts. Watching, say, Peppa the Pig eat her own father even once can have a profoundly negative effect on a young child.

Absolutely parents should not let YouTube babysit their children. But a child watching, say, Sesame Street, will tell you about how Oscar helped Elmo do such-and-such, or Grover had a bad day and Big Bird comforted him, and they'll apply that to their own life. A child watching Marvel character heads buried in sand will prattle on about random creatures' heads buried in things, and will fail to apply that lesson to anything in their real-life experience.

EDIT: Not to imply e.g. Disney is flawless – remember Dumbo's pink elephants?

[freddie_mercury]

Sounds like the same complaints that were made about the greatest children's book of all time -- Alice in Wonderland. A book entirely based on illogical nonsense.

[thomastjeffery]

A book entirely based on illogical nonsense.

Not so.

Alice in Wonderland is a book set in illogical nonsense. The world is illogical, the characters are illogical, but the story is cohesive. That is what makes Alice in Wonderland so wonderful.

To contrast, what we are talking about are generated associations between familiar things. Instead of Alice in Wonderland's illogical nouns and cohesive story, we have familiar nouns and illogical story.

Alice in Wonderland took us on an unfamiliar trip, and made its strange self relatable. These videos are the reverse: they take relatable things, and shove them together in incohesive, unrelatable, and sometimes frightening ways.

[colanderman]

Actually I was thinking of the Disney film adaptation of that as an example of the kind of nonsensical visual stuff that can linger in a kid's head forever. I still distinctly remember the scene with the cards marching angrily. Why were they cards? Why were they angry? Why were they scary? Didn't matter then, doesn't matter now, but to my 3-year-old brain it was really important to try to answer those questions.

I haven't read the book, but given that it's based much more on wordplay as a means of humor (and therefore the exploration of what is, and isn't, sensical in the real world -- the core of humor) than on... algorithmic garbage..., and that it's intended for 8-13 year olds (the ages of its first audience) rather than 2-6 year olds (the target audience of nursery rhymes etc. that the videos in the article are based on), it's somewhat tangential to the point that I and the article are trying to make.

[krapp]

The nonsense in Alice in Wonderland is quite logical - a lot of it is allegory based on math, linguistics and theology.

[amigoingtodie]

What about this Disney movie?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South

[jwilk]

Non-mobile link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_South

[donatj]

I had to Google the Peppa Pig eating her own father video, and I can say without a doubt I would rather have my child watch that than Peppa Pig.

[mixedCase]

What's more, it is hilarious how this was shown as an example of the videos targeting kids. As a native spanish speaker, it seems overhwelmingly obvious to me that this is just a standard parody animation targeted for teens and young adults. Equivalent in tone to SpeedoSausage and much of the Newgrounds crowd.

[lwerdna]

Great explanation!

[joe_the_user]

Human beings begin learning to speak by babbling - producing nonsensical language gradually begin to make sense.

It seem illogical that a sense stream of images would innately dangerous by itself. Indeed, most of the things that a child sees at a young age are senseless to the child even if they have a logic to them. Moroever, a child is going observe a senseless stream of images whenever an adult begins channel surfing in a determined manner.

[colanderman]

> Human beings begin learning to speak by babbling - producing nonsensical language gradually begin to make sense.

That analogy is flawed. Children don't learn to speak by listening to each other babble. They learn by listening to adults speak in cohesive, logical sentences.

> It seem illogical that a sense stream of images would innately dangerous by itself.

If it causes the child to ruminate on a nonsensical topic, it is. Children have very limited time to learn about social norms and human behavior.

> Moroever, a child is going observe a senseless stream of images whenever an adult begins channel surfing in a determined manner.

You seem to misunderstand the amount of time children spend watching adults change television channels, versus say, literally anything else that occurs in their life.

[joe_the_user]

You seriously claim that streams of nonsense is by itself damaging to the brain of a child? Just on it's face it seems unlikely.

[aerodeck]

I'm surprised no-one in this entire thread has even mentioned the possibility that autism, OCD, ADHD, etc. might be, in part, caused by such streams of nonsense.

Human sociality needs to be boostrapped. Kids watching this all-day-every-day are /definitely/ gonna grow up funny. Why do you think daycare costs more than a mortage?

[treve]

What makes you think that that's unlikely? I find it completely absurd that a child can adopt our culture and language in such a short time. Kids learn and adapt at an extreme pace. why wouldn't you think throwing nonsense in there would affect development?

[jdietrich]

The author is British. I don't know about the US, but our children's television represents the highest aspirations of broadcasting. Cbeebies and CBBC consistently produce programmes with the utmost of thought and care.

If kids TV in the US is genuinely no better than the pap on YouTube, then you guys need to picket the FCC until something radical happens.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows

[Mz]

It is not just you, but my youngest is 27. I am not currently raising small kids. So I try to respect the fact that if parents are complaining, then it must be an issue for them.

My bigger concern is that we are happy to let automation take jobs while talking about UBI as the solution. Does no one but me see a connection here? This is a way for people to make money using automation in the face of fewer regular jobs being available due to automation. If people need money and can't make it some other way, duh, they turn to doing this stuff.

[andrepd]

Are you even trying to compare a Disney film or similar "saccharnine contentless" media to the sheer acid trip nightmare fuel that is videos like these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXjJdv5fj5k

[mehwoot]

I don't get what is so bad? If you watch the video it has a story, it is just really poorly animated.

[spookthesunset]

You seriously don’t see what is wrong with a five year old watching that? Did you even watch it?

[Karunamon]

Perhaps you could explain it rather than making an argument to incredulity?

[nickodell]

I don't think it does have a story. Things happen in it, sure, but not for a reason. In one skit, the bad guys bring a tiny shark, then enlarge it with a magic wand. At first, it chases them in a pool, but after they get out, the shark flies after them. The shark eats punch and turns red. The Narrator says, "Red." They run into a room, and the shark phases through the wall. They run out of the room. They run outside, and the good guys shoot at the shark with guns. The shark changes color again. Finally, they shoot the shark with a wand, which changes it back again. This last part is the only part within the skit where something is stipulated, and then becomes relevant again. Every other time, something happens for no reason, and then that thing doesn't happen again.

In another skit, a girl want to play with all of the other kids. She tries to take away one child's toy, but he gets angry, and pushes her to the ground. She runs away, and finds her magic wand. The magic wand turns a red toy into an evil red ghost. The kids shoot at with guns until it pops. The magic wand creates a green ghost. The kids shoot it. Wand creates a pink ghost. The kids shoot it. Wand creates a yellow ghost. The kids shoot it. The girl runs away.

There's also no continuity or story between the skits. In one skit, the Joker sneaks into someone's house and kidnaps them. In another, he's a good guy, changing all of the watermelon into rainbow watermelon.

TL;DR: Shell out for PBS. Don't let your children watch this.

[plink]

Watching that is tantamount to reading Act II from The King in Yellow.

[aerodeck]

Watching that was worse than August Underground's Mordum.

[joe_the_user]

The main different between this and say the "Road Runner" series is Road Runner is somewhat better quality. But either way you've a series of exploding cartoon figures - what age wasn't Road Runner appropriate for?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JbWb5xVEU

[quotemstr]

Isn't it possible that autogenerated saccharine trips might be even sweeter than anything a human mind might generate?

You know how machine translation is often hilarious when it produces word combinations that wouldn't even _occur_ to a normal humanmind? We think it's funny because we're _aware_ of the difference between normal word sequences and word salad. Small children are not aware of the ways in which these algorithmically-generated videos are, well, weird. Who knows how children's minds react to these supernormal stimuli?

[joe_the_user]

Isn't it possible that autogenerated saccharine trips might be even sweeter than anything a human mind might generate?

It seems unlikely.

Autogeneration is done for quality but for quantity. Humans have been crafting "high" and "low" brow content for a while and while I might call low brow content trash, I recognize very specific talents and strategies go into things like horrible jingles, it seems unlikely the marketeer could make something with more of qualities they're after just by accident.

When I was young, quite a long time ago, guns and military toys were huge - obviously that implied violence and it all went into my brain.

I would expect that the extreme flexibility of a child's brain would tend to allow them to select between the huge variety of things they're exposed to. And thus I'd suspect the worst part of modern child rearing is the things children aren't allowed to do, such as play outside in the part by themselves (insert horror stories here).

[2bitencryption]

I think the reason you're so sour is because you didn't see enough Disney films growing up.