Poster #141 - “Sometimes people on YouTube are real, but sometimes not”: Understanding the Affordances of YouTube

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

YouTube has only grown in popularity with young children since its launch in 2005 (ParentsTogether Foundation, 2020). However, very little is known about how children’s understanding of YouTube’s affordances as a medium may be related to development and their experience with the medium. Thus, the goal of the current study is to understand how young children's justifications for their judgements about YouTube may be related to (1) age, (2) experience with YouTube, and (3) the educational status of their favorite YouTube videos.

Using a within-subjects design, children were asked about their beliefs regarding the reality status, educational value, and preference for a purported YouTube video and provided justifications for their responses. Participants were 74 children aged 3-8 (50% female). Caregivers (N = 74) provided information about demographics and home media use. The justification coding scheme focused on medium-specific comments, demonstrating that children have a grasp of what is possible within the context of the medium of YouTube. These were further divided into Medium-Objective (fact-based) and Medium-Subjective (opinion-based).

Results suggest that for each month increase in age, children were 1.03 times more likely to provide a Medium-Objective reason—denoting a more nuanced understanding of YouTube’s affordances, x2(1)=4.834, p=.028, [CI 1.002-1.060]—for justifying the reality status of YouTube. The final model explained 8.80% (Nagelkerke R2) of the variance in children’s justifications and correctly classified 68% of cases. Amount of experience with YouTube or having a favorite video with educational content were not related to a more nuanced understanding of the affordances of the medium.

Compared to older children, younger children gave less sophisticated justifications for their judgments, citing, for example, physical aspects of the image, personal references, or subjective feelings rather than information about the medium itself. This suggests that older children may have a more nuanced understanding of YouTube as a medium and/or are more likely to use such knowledge of to inform their reality status judgements, beliefs about educational value, and preferences. For example, an 8-year-old claimed that the person on YouTube was real by saying, “YouTubers are actually in real life. They report on things that really happen.” On the other hand, younger children might use their own personal experience to guide their judgments. For example, one 5-year-old stated that, “Uncle D taught me [to watch it] and I love it.” This idea is in line with previous research about the presence of developmental change in children’s justifications about the affordances of television (Chandler, 1997; Hodge and Tripp, 1986) and with the idea that cognitive development involves a decreasing reliance on one’s own experience and an increased consideration of other sources of information (Woolley and Ghossainy, 2013): older children are better able to use their knowledge of the medium to support their judgements.

Understanding factors that influence how children conceptualize YouTube’s place in the world of digital media may inform how platforms can be better designed to optimize positive impact on child wellbeing and help educators and caregivers make informed decisions about children’s interactions with streaming platforms.

Authors

• Brenna Hassinger-Das, Pace University
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Dore, Ohio State University