We need to talk about CoComelon.

Screentime.

Everyone has an opinion. Some of us go with the recommendations of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (www.aacap.org). Others - myself included - restricted it as much as possible until that one weekend when the entire family had a stomach bug and it was the only option for two parents who were bed ridden.

But I’m not here to just talk about screentime. Yes, it’s an important topic. Yes, you should proceed with caution when allowing your children to watch YouTube, Netflix, Disney +, etc.

But why should we be wary?

Well, The New York Times published an article on May 5, 2022 about Moonbug Entertainment. For those of you not surrounded daily by rug rats of your own, Moonbug is responsible for about 29 of the most popular online shows for kids, including Blippi, CoComelon, Little Baby Bum, Morphle, and more.

They are on 150 platforms, and make content in 32 different languages.

In March of this year they had ::checks notes:: 7.8 BILLION views on YouTube. In a month.

That’s a lot of kids. The breadth of their influence is staggering.

The article also goes on to describe, in pretty good detail, the process by which Moonbug tests and produces videos. I won’t give it all away, so that you’ll go read the article by David Segal, but in sort, Moonbug leaves nothing to chance.

One example given is an anecdote about a child watching a Moonbug video, and looking away at distraction video that is also present. When the child looses interest, the video is paused and tweaked. Maybe they add a yellow bus instead of a blue one. Maybe a girl gets red hair instead of blonde hair. Once something has been changed, a new child is brought in until no distractions draw the children away from the clip.

And THIS is what we need to talk about.

What are we doing to the kids? It can’t be a great thing? To be tempted? To have endorphins consistently flooding their brains?

I don’t think all TV and YouTube channels are bad (I have one myself). But we need to have a conversation about the difference between actively engaging children with meaningful content and creating addicts who need constant positive stimulation.

What do you think? Am I being dramatic?

For the full article by David Segal, please check out the article here: Moonbug Article by David Segal.