As the online safety of minors continues to be a focus internationally, YouTube and other social media platforms are increasing parental controls.
The Google-owned platform announced Wednesday that it is introducing additional parental controls, especially regarding the amount of time children and teens spend watching YouTube Shorts.
Parents can now set a timer for how long their children’s connected accounts spend watching short videos (YouTube’s equivalent of TikToks or Instagram Reels), reducing the chance of them wasting time mindlessly scrolling.
Parents can also permanently or temporarily block their children from watching short videos on their account altogether, like if your child uses YouTube to watch educational content and study for tests.
YouTube also allows parents to set custom bedtime and break reminders to remind users to stop watching videos. These features are also available to adults, who can choose to set their own limits and reminders.
For parents who also use YouTube, it can be difficult to switch back and forth between adult and child accounts unless you want Bluey to take over the algorithm forever. YouTube says it will update its in-app sign-up experience in the coming weeks to make it easier for parents and kids to switch between accounts with just a few taps. Of course, this requires the parent or child to actually remember to make the switch.
These features build on YouTube’s existing parental controls for teens and include the ability to supervise the channel activity of teens who are creating content. TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook also have similar controls, making this an industry standard.
Last year, YouTube also announced age estimation technology that predicts whether an account is a teenager, so it can provide a more age-appropriate experience.
