The greatest asset that young children have in their earliest years of development is time. Parents know this instinctively. It's why we agonize over screen time decisions, why we feel that twinge of guilt when handing over a tablet. 

 The notion of completely screen-free childhood feels as antiquated as one of those televisions with "bunny years" antennae. The question isn't whether children will consume media, but which media they'll consume, and whether that consumption will serve or hinder their development.

The Edutainment Fallacy

By definition, for something to be "educational," it just has to teach you something. I could produce videos for preschoolers about how to make chicken marsala, how to change spark plugs in a classic VW bug, or how to blend sounds in 2-syllable words. They're all genuinely educational. I'd argue that the video about blending sounds is the one most likely to help the child show kindergarten readiness. See what I'm getting at here? "Educational" is not enough.

YouTube's algorithm doesn't distinguish between these types of content. It measures engagement, not educational value. The algorithm rewards videos that keep children watching, not videos that develop phonological awareness or build vocabulary. These are fundamentally misaligned incentives, and the result is a wasteland of content branded as "educational" that does little to support actual development.

Moving Beyond the Algorithm

Parents need better tools to evaluate content quality. They need a framework that goes beyond "my child seems to like it" or "it claims to teach the alphabet." They need guidance rooted in developmental science, not marketing claims.

The inherent challenges in finding quality content require guiding structures, and research will always be one of them. There will always be some level of deference to the research community, and the reward for that should be research that tackles the multi-faceted problems that families are facing.

There can be no bystanders in the pursuit of quality early childhood media. Neither parents nor educators nor researchers can solve this problem alone. We need stronger partnerships between those who study child development and those who create content.

The impetus behind Modern Child Media is to bring that partnership to life – to evaluate content based on alignment with developmental science, to highlight videos that actually support literacy development, and to provide parents with tools to make informed choices about their children's media diet.