Do kids these days know too much because of YouTube etc?

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Rozellelily

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Am I just being a prude or does it seem kids (teens) these day are being told too much because of sharing on Youtube etc?
Im not usually the prudish type and happy to dress sometimes a little bit sexy but it seems even for me sometimes society goes too far.
Eg:I see some girls around 18-22 saying on YouTube blunt stories of “my first experience of sex” or “what should know about sexually transmitted diseases” etc and kids that are like 13-14 (perhaps even younger) can/are view this prior to having the maturity to be exposed to this.

Is it just to be expected because we are in the information era and just “educational” or is it an issue and like these kids are knowing/learning what will give them the most views on YouTube/social media and use “shock factor” (topics like sex) just to get views and grow in popularity?

It seems like “everyone” wants to be notorious/have fame these days like they are learning values from the Kardashians?
 
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When I was a kid, if you heard a term that made you curious, you could look it up in the dictionary or encyclopedia. Now, kids can google it and get a deluge of information and images from anyone who has a computer and an internet connection that decides to throw something online.

So, yes, social media and the internet present challenges to adolescents that were not faced by previous generations. Parents and teachers need to help children navigate these things. Part of that includes not giving them unrestricted access to the internet at age 13.
 
Joe_5859 said:
Part of that includes not giving them unrestricted access to the internet at age 13.
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The problem is don’t they all have a smart phone these days or even at the chance one child doesn’t have one there’s always some friend at school who does so they can still look up whatever?

This is a bit off topic and extreme but related, I saw this show from Uk where some mothers were actually making “mum approved pornography” because they think that so many teens are getting their “sex education” from looking up pornography online.
 
Rozellelily said:
The problem is don’t they all have a smart phone these days or even at the chance one child doesn’t have one there’s always some friend at school who does so they can still look up whatever?
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Yes, many kids have smart phones. My kids don’t. If they did, there would be restrictions and parental locks on certain features.

Yes, kids may have friends that do, but (thinking of myself at that age), I would be mortified at the thought of borrowing someone else’s device to look up sex topics. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it makes it a lot more difficult.

Of course, we also teach children how to properly navigate the internet, and point out where the pitfalls are.
 
Rozellelily said:
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Joe_5859:
Part of that includes not giving them unrestricted access to the internet at age 13.
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The problem is don’t they all have a smart phone these days or even at the chance one child doesn’t have one there’s always some friend at school who does so they can still look up whatever?

This is a bit off topic and extreme but related, I saw this show from Uk where some mothers were actually making “mum approved pornography” because they think that so many teens are getting their “sex education” from looking up pornography online.
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  1. it is not a law to buy your child a smartphone. No one is forcing you to do it.
  2. there are child filters on computers, tablets and smartphone that can lock down what they have access to.
  3. there are some really good parents who don’t buy their kids smartphone and who have rules that the internet may only be used in public areas of the house. No bedrooms and no bathrooms.
So, while you cannot control what they see outside your home, you can control what they have access to see inside your home and with your dollars.

THE KEY & HARD PART is for BOTH parents to be on the same page.

God bless
 
the problem isn’t so much the facts about the birds and the bees, but that they’re not exposed to morality and critical thinking.
Only slogans
 
In which sense do you mean morality,critical thinking and slogans?

Where I live the only way kids are exposed to Christian morality is if they go to a Christian school.
Otherwise for the most part the morality is decided by the government and status quo and most of their views are anti Christian values eg:in Australia the view is strongly pro ivf and that gay couples adopting or having a baby through sperm donor is a human “right” etc…

Or another example,here there is a strong push for the creation of better aids testing and the eradication of aids which is great but they never mention that aids can be caused by self bad choices.
If anyone was to suggest that aids can be greatly prevented by not sleeping around with many people here to say that it’s seem by some like throwing an insult.

Kids are taught at public schools (and by others on YouTube) the ins and outs about stds but noones really saying to them if you don’t sleep with many people you don’t really have to know about all that stuff (for most part) in the first place.
I guess that’s just old fashioned today?
 
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Pretty much what you said.

It’s very easy to toss slogans around like “love is love”, and very difficult to sit down and explain the purpose of sex, it’s life-giving sacredness, the awesome responsibility of raising a child, how sex does not equal love, how friendship is a great good which is not the same as romantic love, etc.

So then you have poorly informed people making statements like, “I can’t believe God would get mad just because two people loved each other!”

🤦‍♀️
 
You do know that before Youtube or the Internet were invented, kids had ways of finding out this stuff from other sources, such as magazines?

I had “teen magazines” when I was a tween, because although they were called “Teen” they were really for readers who were like 12 years old and trying to be older, that covered all the same stuff. Or we’d just get hold of some adult magazines from our parents’ stash or from the newsstand.

There was also TV, and before we had TV, we had the movies. I suppose if you want to go back a couple hundred years there wouldn’t be anything, but in those days girls were married at 14 and often guys weren’t that much older when they took a wife or otherwise acted like grown men.

Youtube isn’t some new special think. People always think whatever the trendy thing is for their generation is different from what came before and it isn’t.
 
Like @Tis_Bearself said this information has been around before youtube.

With that said, the quality of information has certainly changed. If you found information in an encyclopedia, or even a magazine, the quality of information is usually higher. On youtube, anyone can upload anything and “bad content” can receive a lot of attention.

As a side note, TVs (from what I am told, I was born in 2000!) were usually in pretty open areas of a house. So I kind of doubt that kids would be able to watch the same sort of things without their parents knowing.

Regardless, the problem is that people are watching too much youtube.
 
Contego said:
As a side note, TVs (from what I am told, I was born in 2000!) were usually in pretty open areas of a house. So I kind of doubt that kids would be able to watch the same sort of things without their parents knowing.
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Depends. In the 70s maybe there was one TV and everyone watched it. As TV became cheaper, often there would be multiple TVs and the kids would have their own. Also parents spent more time out of the house and the kid was home watching TV unsupervised.
 
It’s not that I don’t know that there were things before.
Actually,the first time I had sex was at 14 but I definitely don’t think that’s a good thing.
I also (as was mentioned) read cleo,dolly etc when I was 11 and 12 but I don’t think that’s a good thing either.
If anything it’s part of the problem.
Now with the internet there is a much greater volume of these sorts of things kids are exposed to.
And it seems they are influenced to a greater degree by each other because many people want notoriety like Kim Kardashian etc so they do/say whatever it takes to get views or likes etc?

People used to want to be rich but it’s like “everyone” now wants to be famous.

Isn’t the only reason they make YouTube posts like “my first sex experience” for attention because otherwise wouldn’t some things just remain personal or only shared with friends?

And another issue is unfortunately bullying.
Ie:Bullying has always existed unfortunately but at least before when kids went home at end of school day they could “escape” their bullies but now they are bullied after school too on Facebook etc…
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Depends. In the 70s maybe there was one TV and everyone watched it. As TV became cheaper, often there would be multiple TVs and the kids would have their own. Also parents spent more time out of the house and the kid was home watching TV unsupervised.
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Gosh, I used to watch a lot of tv back in the day (I read a lot of books, too), supervised and unsupervised. I think the raciest stuff I saw was ‘Love American Style’ and ‘Love Boat.’ I think my parents’ attitude was, ‘if it’s on tv, it’s appropriate.’ As I got older I’d stay up late with my father and watch things like Johnny Carson or the Benny Hill Show, which featured mildly racy jokes and skits: a lot of stuff was implied which I probably didn’t wholly understand.
 
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As a young person myself, I would like to put in my two cents. I would agree that things on the Internet have most definitely warped the views of many teens, even in Christian/Catholic school settings. I have been so wonderfully given the gift of a religious education, but even with it, you can easily fall into the traps of believing something very wrong to be right. I have seen my moral values become more and more aligned with the Catholic Church because of my education, but before the classes on morality, etc., I believed many immoral things to be right because of my exposure to YouTube and other Internet sources.

To any parents, I would ask that you look out for your children and try your best to shape their moral views as best as you can. Try to build your teen’s knowledge of right and wrong before they are exposed to things on the Internet so you can prevent having to undo any damage to the formation of conscience. Many of my closest friends have wonderful moral views because their parents were very interested in making sure their ability to determine right from wrong was strong, along with the restriction of use of YouTube, smartphones, etc. And even if your teen already seems to have warped views, it is never too late to correct them, even if it becomes harder as they grow older.
 
I’m pretty sure most kids are interested in watching YouTube videos on video games/anime/popular franchises than random strangers blogging about their sex lives. If they know too much, I doubt it’s from that platform.
 
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Wouldn’t that more be just “nerdy” boys though?
Maybe it’s different in USA and American girls are into video games etc (?) but the girls I know are more interested in makeup videos,and “storytime” videos,workout/comedy/generally following or subscribing who’s pretty/relationships etc…

As an aside though clearly there’s lots of even little kids using YouTube (even though the legal age for signing up is 13+) because how else could it be explained the huge popularity of “make slime” type videos🙄
I think perhaps this is ok though as long as parents only allow them to view this “childish type” content?
 
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