You tube is a video sharing site that allow people to upload and shares original videos. It became one of the popular site after Facebook. We even share those interesting video to our friends through Facebook. We see the latest silly video that everyone talking about. It almost become our daily "must do task" after Facebook. You tube is getting to replace the mainstream media because of people today are tending to face more computer/Internet than the TV and a lot of the relevant agencies were concerned on this channel.
Furthermore, we knew that kids today are very familiar with the Internet. For an example, I have a nephew who had an Facebook account even though he is only 7 years old and the main purpose for him is just to play game. Other than that, he told me that one of the reason he wants a Facebook account is just because most of his friend having it and this made him desired to have it too. From here we can see the kids now is totally different from how we entertain our self when we are kids. There are a high percentage for a kids to receive something that might not appropriate to their age. How does it possible?
First of, kids are weak in dangerous conscious compared to adult. They might not know how to cover or keep their privacy info in secure. There is a high percentage that they will add people that they don not know in their Facebook. Therefore, they could see some inappropriate content that posted by this people in Facebook. Based on my personal experiences, I did saw pornography contents posted by someone in Facebook. These might be virus or posted by personal intent but does not get the immediate censorship by the Facebook authorities. This might be harmful to the kids when they do not know how to filter the content by themselves.
Let's come back to the Youtube. Youtube is one of the fun place for the kids. According the kids that I knew, they often surf You tube for Cartoon, Jokes, Mv or even as their learning method. No doubt, You tube is a great place for the people around the world to show their creativity, to learn something. There for, Youtube is the No. 1 online video site (according to Nielsen Online) and 24 hours video uploaded to the site in every minutes. This has created a business opportunity to all the industry and their are tend to advertise their brand, products and services through this channel. But do you know that kids are suppose to be 13 years old to use You tube? Some pornography website even create some teaser on the site to attract the audiences to surf their own site through the link below the video. Other than that, some of the music videos were consisted of obscene content that are inappropriate for the kids to view and they are way more other categories of video that consist of the violant contents. We knew that the censorship in our country (Malaysia) are not strong enough to quarantine all the inappropriate contents from the kids. We can still easily find those negative contents from this sites.
There are no right or wrong to letting the kids to surf the net or Youtube. No doubt, Youtube is one of the best learning method in these days. But before that, we should at least have a guidance for the kids in order to watch videos in Youtube. If possible, accompany them on while they when they surfing the site and tell them which are the things is not inappropriate will be good. Further more, you can also find a way (example: safe mode from the option) to block the under age contents from the kids.
References:
(2010) Family Media Management: "Youtube and your kids", Common Sense Media.
URL: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/advice-for-parents/youtube-and-your-kids
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