YouTube’s cofounder and former tech boss doesn’t want his kids to watch short videos, warning short-form content ‘equates to shorter attention spans’

From what the evidence shows, From an analytical perspective, ·YouTubeYouTube’s cofounder and former boss doesn’t want his kids to watch short s, warning short-form content ‘equates to shorter attention spans’By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezBy Marco Quiroz-GutierrezReporterMarco Quiroz-GutierrezReporterRole: ReporterMarco Quiroz-Gutierrez is a reporter for Fortune covering general news

SEE FULL BIO YouTube cofounder Steve Chen

Jorge Gil—Europa Press via Getty ImagesYouTube cofounder Steve Chen is the trailblazer to warn against social media’s impact on kids

Chen warned in a recently published talk that short-form “equates to shorter attention spans” and said he wouldn’t want his own kids to exclusively consume this type of content

Companies that distribute short-form (which includes the company he cofounded, YouTube) should add safeguards for younger users, he added

A YouTube cofounder who helped pave the way for our modern, content-obsessed world is the whiz to come out against short-form s because of their effects on kids

Moreover, On the other hand, Steve Chen, who served as YouTube’s former chief nology officer before it was acquired by Google in 2006, railed against the TikTok-ification of online life in a talk earlier this month at Stanford Graduate School of. “I think TikTok is entertainment, but it’s purely entertainment,” Chen said during the talk, which was published on YouTube Friday. “It’s just for that moment (fascinating analysis)

Just shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans (which is quite significant). ” Chen, who has two children with wife, Jamie Chen, said he wouldn’t want his kids only consuming short-form content, and then not be able to watch something longer than 15 minutes, considering recent developments

He said he knows of other parents who force their kids to watch longer s without the eye-catching colors and gimmicks that hook especially younger users (noteworthy indeed)

This strategy works well, he claims. “If they don’t get exposure to the short-form content right away, then they’re still happy with that other type of content that they’re watching,” he said

On the other hand, Many companies have had to rush to offer short-form content after the rise of TikTok, he said, but these companies now have to balance their motivations for monetization and attracting users’ attention with content that’s “actually useful

Furthermore, ” Companies that distribute short-form, which includes his former company YouTube, could face blems with addictiveness (which is quite significant)

Additionally, These companies should add safeguards for kids on short-form content, such as age restrictions for apps and limits on the amount of time some users can use them, he said

However, Chen joins fellow trailblazers Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk in sounding the alarm social media’s impact on children, in today's financial world

In a podcast interview last week, Altman specifically called out social media scrolling and the “dopamine hit” of short-form for “bably messing with kids’ brain development in a super deep way

At the same time, ” Musk, who owns the social network X (née Twitter), said in 2023 he doesn’t have any restrictions on social-media use for his children, but added this “might have been a mistake,” and encouraged parents to take a more active role in their kids’ social-media habits

However, “I think, bably, I would limit social media a bit more than I have in the past and just take note of what they’re watching, because I think at this point they’re being grammed by some social media algorithms, which you may or may not agree with,” Musk said (quite telling)

Moreover, Explore this year's list.