YouTube’s Scary Popularity

YouTube is recognized by many as one of the most popular internet destinations for teens, and by far the most popular video site.

Why should that scare us?

Because it’s filled with plenty of content that will tempt our students and kids and taint their mind with sin, and it’s not easy to avoid. According to a recent study from the Parent’s Television Council, even innocent searches on YouTube like “Hannah Montana” quickly leads kids to explicit content.

A group called the Parent’s Television Council just finished a first-of-it’s-kind study of content on YouTube. Personally, I wasn’t surprised at all by what they found! I avoid surfing around YouTube because it’s so easy to stumble into videos that are downright shameful. It’s not a question of intention, but what you might stumble across in spite of your intentions that can pull you down a path of sin and destruction.

I’ll spare you the ridiculous details, but here’s a summary of what they found:

“Children who use YouTube to search for video clips of their favorite stars like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers are exposed to some of the most offensive profanity in the English language. Video searches for these popular terms showed that YouTube’s gating procedures do not extend to text commentary. 

“And despite YouTube’s policy of not hosting sexually graphic videos, entering any number of popular search terms produced videos linked to ads for triple-X pornography – often without even requiring age verification.

“With nearly half of boys and a third of girls ages 13-17 naming YouTube as one of their top three favorite websites, no parent can afford to ignore these findings.  The results of this study should serve as a wake-up call for any parent concerned about graphic or indecent material on websites they perceive to be ‘safe’ for their children.” PTC President Tim Winter.

Most parents (and some youth pastors too?) still give a blind eye to what teens are doing online. We stop after telling them to not do “bad stuff” on the internet, but little do we realize that even when they surf for perfectly harmless things, the bad stuff finds them.

Is it too far to tell students to stay away from YouTube? Would students do it, even if we taught them to–and how should that affect what we teach them?