My son, Alexander, became fascinated with YouTube when he was about 10 years old. Like millions of children, he began by watching entertaining videos—sports highlights, challenges and creators whose lives appeared exciting and free. But YouTube was not simply a collection of videos that Alex chose to watch.
Its algorithm studied him. It learned what held his attention and kept offering him more. At first, it seemed harmless.
Then homework began taking longer, bedtime became later and stopping became difficult. There was always another video. Alex would say that he needed only one more minute, but one video led to another and then another.
We had rules in our home, including leaving phones on the counter at night. But ordinary household rules were not designed to compete with platforms engineered to keep children engaged. The phone was only the object.
The real power was inside it: the endless feed, the recommendations, the notifications and the promise that something even more exciting was about to appear. As Alex grew older, YouTube was joined by TikTok, Snapchat and other platforms. He was no longer satisfied with watching other people.
He wanted to become a content creator himself. Alex was genuinely talented on camera. He was warm, expressive, funny, handsome and able to hold people’s attention.
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