YouTube’s unintended impact on us

Introduction Social media’s power

There is no denying that social media has changed the way we communicate. For example, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are now an integral part of our lives. The focus of this essay is on YouTube. Founded in 2005, YouTube was originally created as an ecosystem for self-expression. It allowed ordinary people to showcase their talents through home-made videos, with the possibility of content monetisation. It also attracted large media companies to let their content reach a wider audience. That was the dawn of the video-sharing internet age. More than a decade later, the word “YouTuber” is now as a mainstream a word as “Googling”, and has turned into a glorified career that symbolises the 21st century dream of achieving internet stardom. Today, YouTube has 2 billion users worldwide and 500 hours of video are uploaded per minute (according to a 2020 report).

Put simply, YouTube has the power to create impact, whether it is to rally supporters for a social cause, or to reach out to global audiences for businesses. Its success and popularity boils down to its authenticity, inclusiveness and accessibility. Anyone can be part of its community and the content is not only entertaining but educational. For instance, high quality educational content, such as TedEd, brings education to the masses. Despite YouTube being a great resource, there are unprecedented consequences as well.

Unintended Impact A threat to children?

YouTube is a threat to the mental health of children. As a free platform for all, quality control is dubious and there is much potential for abuse. Disturbing videos have made their way to unsuspecting young viewers. According to a study, 2.47% of all content on YouTube was deemed to be inappropriate — a farily large amount for a platform which relies on full-time, paid moderators to police content. This has raised the alarm bells of mental health experts. As children are less discerning in their media consumption, exposure to age-inappropriate content has increased the rates of anxiety and depression amongst children over the past decade. YouTube addiction is also a growing phenomenon as its rapidly generated content is extremely gratifying and addictive. Children who are unable to self-regulate are drawn deeper and deeper into its pixelated underworld, putting their mental health at risk.

Adding to the declining mental health of children is the increasingly toxic environment caused by YouTube. The YouTube community has its fair share of trolls lurking in cyberspace who promote unhealthy online competition, by giving the impression that views and subscribers are all that matter. Shrouded in anonymity, these cyber-bullies would also post hateful comments online aimed to denounce or threaten their enemies. This stems from moderators on such platforms having not stringent enough community guidelines to flag such behaviour as violations. In addition, YouTube—and its consumers—can be unforgiving towards content creators who spark controversy and are “cancelled” as a result. While those with more privileged positions are able to withstand the cancelling with their large fanbase, smaller content creators struggle to cope with the cancelling. After posting apology videos to regain their subscriber base, issues often remain unresolved and the cyber-bullying by rival camps intensifies, creating an even more polarised and toxic social environment.

What’s next The future of YouTube

YouTube has been taking measures to mitigate its impact on juvenile mental health. In order to protect children and give parents more control over their content, the “safe mode” setting allows users to block age-restricted content and surf safely. As part of its content regulation, the upload setting for videos created by minors is also set to “private” by default (although there is still an argument that minors should not even be allowed to upload in the first place without parental consent), so that younger users can make an intentional choice when making their content public. More recently from August 2021, YouTube will curb addiction by automatically reminding users between the ages of 13 to 17 to take a break or go to bed if the app detectsed prolonged usage. YouTube also stated that they would be removing overly commercial content from YouTube Kids channel, to protect them from covert marketing by advertisers. While these strategies may not be fool-proof, YouTube and its community could be a safer environment for all and will be an invention that will stay firmly rooted in the near future. Thus, in the long term, perhaps in the next fifty years, I believe that YouTube would continue to be beneficial towards society.