U.S. Senate hearing explores dangers of too much screen time for children
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(Missourinet) - A U.S. Senate committee is examining the effects on children who spend hours with their eyes glued to smartphones and tablets. Jeremy Horvath, CEO of educational company LME Global, told Missouri U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt that online advertising aimed at kids is more sophisticated than the cereal TV commercials they grew up watching:
“Whatever was on the TV, we all watched it. So, there was a certain element of collectivism where our identities were formed around one thing that none of us touched. Today, it's all individualism. Everything you watch will be geared towards you, which means the ads you see will be geared towards you, and it shoves you into a very small path and which really narrows your identity.”
Another witness testified that YouTube and TikTok design their algorithms with “addictive” features designed to keep young kids and teens watching, which in turn earns the platforms more money from advertising.
Doctor Jenny Radesky with the University of Michigan’s medical school told Senator Schmitt that YouTube in particular is a major source of video content for kids.
“There's a huge market for young children's content on YouTube. There's a couple of reasons for this. One, it's very successful. Two, parents of young children are exhausted, and so they use YouTube to occupy kids. And so, there's tons of ad space to be filled.”
She also said YouTube-ers are now instructing each other on how to create AI-generated nursery rhymes and other content geared towards young children because they’re a “huge source of ad sales.”
San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge told Senator Schmitt that TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms “knowingly design addictive features” that target kids:
That's their business model. And TikTok in particular, their internal research, they know that that is especially effective with children and young teens because of brain development and impulse control. They have the biggest problem with spending an excessive amount of time.”
