Org Report

Young Kids and YouTube: How Ads, Toys, and Games Dominate Viewing

Jan 2020 🇺🇸 Common Sense Media Ages 0–8

Radesky led this University of Michigan research team's report for Common Sense Media, which coded 1,639 YouTube videos that parents reported their children (ages 0–8) had actually watched on the main YouTube site. The team found advertising in the large majority of early-childhood videos, with ads sometimes running longer than the video itself, and reported that a meaningful share of ads shown even in age-appropriate videos featured content like violence or alcohol not suited to the audience. Nearly half of videos watched by young children featured or promoted a product for purchase, and roughly a quarter of videos children watched were made for older audiences, including gaming and prank content. Only about one in twenty videos showed high educational quality, while diverse representation and positive role modeling appeared in about a quarter of videos. The report closes with recommendations for platform design and policy changes.

95% of early-childhood videos contained ads

Advertising appeared in 95% of videos coded in the early-childhood category, with 72%–86% in other age categories, and over a third of early-childhood videos had three or more ads.

27% of videos watched skewed to older audiences

More than one in four videos (27%) that children 8 and under watched were intended for older viewers, including age-inappropriate games, prank/reality content, or violent music-video compilations.

Only ~5% of videos rated high educational quality

While 25% of videos were loosely classified as educational, only about 5% met a high bar for developmentally appropriate educational content; 75% had no or weak educational value.

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CITATION

Radesky, Jenny S., Alexandria Schaller, Samantha L. Yeo, Heidi M. Weeks, and Michael B. Robb. Young Kids and YouTube: How Ads, Toys, and Games Dominate Viewing, 2020. San Francisco: Common Sense Media, 2020.

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