Preschoolers And YouTube/Kids: What Do They Watch And What Are The Concerns?
Our Children’s Media Yearbook 2025 will be publish
ed in July. In this sneak-peak article, Jane O’Connor, Associate Professor of Childhood Studies, Birmingham City University, takes a closer look at what our youngest audience is watching and considers the implications for now and the future.
YouTube/Kids is now the most watched form of media worldwide for 3- and 4-year-old children, with 90% of this age group in the UK accessing videos every week. The ability to choose what to watch, when to watch it and to see endless suggested videos of similar content has all but eclipsed the traditional model of carefully curated children’s television on terrestrial channels. One of the most significant aspects of this shift is the fact that preschoolers are not only limited to being consumers of YouTube/Kids but, increasingly, are also producers of digital content. The number of child-user generated videos continues to grow in popularity and number. These include toy unboxing, arts and crafts tutorials, pranks, baking, science experiments and ‘Let’s Play’ videos presented by young children, also called ‘micro-celebrities’ or ‘kid-fluencers’. Preschoolers are also an integral part of numerous YouTube families who create regular content on their children’s lives and which is usually commercially sponsored.
So, what do 3- and 4-year-olds like to watch? The answer is both simple and infinitely complex. In terms of popularity, certain videos take off to an unprecedented extent in a way that is largely unpredictable. For example, the baby shark dance has now had 11 billion views and has become a shared cultural touchpoint for young children and their parents all over the world. More complex is the way in which YouTube/Kids allows the individual viewer to curate their own entertainment experience, picking and choosing videos that match their current interests or aspirations. For very young children this can make the type of videos they choose very narrow – they may have an intense passion for dinosaurs for example, or for a particular animated character like Bluey, and choose to watch little else.
In terms of what this age group like in general, research has found that young children like short-form, fast-paced content, they like to watch children rather than adults, they like to watch an ideal ‘kid-topia’ version of childhood and they like to feel connected to the presenter, who needs to be relatable and preferably a similar age to themselves. They also really like the videos they watch to be funny.
The YouTube/Kids algorithm will suggest more and more of the same sort of content meaning that children’s video ‘diet’ will become increasingly restricted unless the ‘watch and search’ history is paused in the settings using the parental controls. This is concerning as although YouTube/Kids doesn’t collect children’s personal data, it does collect data on what they watch, potentially building up a profile of the child as a digital content consumer from a very young age, another issue to consider in on-going debates about the growing commercialisation of childhood.
Further concerns about 3–4-year-olds watching YouTube/Kids include: children copying what they see on screen and enacting inappropriate behaviours at home or at preschool; the impact of extended non-social screen time on communication and language development; the impact of too much screen time on social skills; the potentially negative physical impact of screen time on eyesight, posture and diet; and the impact of choosing and discarding endless short videos on children’s attention spans and their ability to concentrate for extended periods of time on texts and lessons as they begin formal education.
A recent Korean study also found that the younger age of a child’s first use of YouTube/Kids and higher usage frequency were significantly associated with increased emotional and behavioural problems. This, coupled with the results of a US study that found that durations of YouTube/Kids use among 3–4-year-olds are longer among those whose parents have lower educational attainment levels and are disproportionately higher in children from lower socioeconomic status families, suggests that watching YouTube/Kids may have particular risks for children who are economically and/or socially disadvantaged.
Equally concerning is the potential of YouTube/Kids to shape the mindset of a whole generation. New research from the UAE has found that interaction with YouTube/Kids influences the aspirations and consumer behaviour of preschool-age children. According to this study, what children want to have and do and who they want to be is connected to who and what they watch on YouTube/Kids. The study also found a marked inclination towards consumerism influenced by digital content amongst 3–4-year-olds. Despite YouTube/Kids having limited advertising, with ads clearly marked as such and restricted advertising on products such as food and drink and beauty and fitness products, much content such as toy reviews are sponsored and content creators, including children and families, build their commercial brand on attracting and keeping subscribers.
So how can we protect young children from the direct and indirect potentially negative outcomes of watching YouTube/Kids? Recommended parental strategies include limiting screen time, co-watching videos and talking to your child about what they are watching, as well as finding out about and implementing the YouTube/Kids parental controls settings.
This is all good advice, but I think we may be past the point, as parents, of being able to control not just everything our children watch, but how what they watch may be impacting their developing identities and understanding of the world. To my mind the time has come for media literacy education to be a part of the learning that takes place in Early Years settings. I believe we need to develop age-appropriate media education for this age group in order to equip young children with the skills to make positive choices about their online viewing habits and to understand the constructed commercial nature of what they are watching on video sharing platforms.
Today’s preschoolers have no choice but to grow up in a digital world. The disturbing truth is that they are being tracked and shaped as digital consumers from the moment they have their first profile on any social media site, including YouTube/Kids. If we want our children to grow up with the freedom to exist and thrive beyond the screen, we need to teach them how they can enjoy the digital content they like, but to also be aware of the commercial aspects of what they are watching and to differentiate between fantasy and reality in what they see portrayed online.
Ofcom’s Latest Media Literacy Research – 7th May 2025 ‘Linear TV Is Dead?’ Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Youtube