How much YouTube is to much? Well when your child starts talking in an American accent, its probably to much, lucky were only at the stage that everything is in dollars.
I know many people with bang on about how letting children watch YouTube is poor parenting and it shouldn't be used as a babysitter and all that stuff but sometimes it's useful. Like when your trying to clean and tidy the house for some guests coming to stay, the last thing you need is for the little ones following along behind you emptying everything you've just tidied up! Sitting them on the sofa with the laptop (don't own a pad) is a great way of keeping them out the way. Doing it at 6am is also acceptable as far as I'm concerned.
Now some of the content on YouTube is rubbish, now I'm not worried about the 'adult' side of it as the filter is actually quite good, too good in some respects, as I sometimes have trouble watching some of my hobby videos, which is annoying. What I mean by rubbish is that the content is just so dire that I can't understand how anyone can watch it, yet often the figures are astonishing, with views in the hundred of thousands, several from my son.
Now some of the content is quite good, either as the story is actually well planned and filmed or because the video is entertaining and informative as well. These are usually the videos that the little man skips about a quarter of the way through, just when I'm getting in to them and want to find out what happens!
Now there are a few downsides to watching YouTube, everything now has names, usually silly, dumpy the dump truck, diggy the digger, Porscheee the Porsche, you get the picture (thanks axle and daddy), then there is the crashes, fascination with knock off/dark side and fail reels (thanks leokim) and lastly there is the fact I keep getting corrected, no daddy that's not a digger, that's a front loader. Well, its an education of sorts. Of course other honourable mentions have to go to the Engineering Family and the Thomas and Friends videos.
.
Now, as I mentioned, I watch bits and pieces myself on YouTube, not as much as I use to, just don't get the time these days, and I think that it is a very useful tool, either just for entertainment or for education, but there really is a lot for crap on there!
No comments:
Post a Comment