PUBLISHED
November 08, 2026
Sometimes, changes in a child’s behaviour are so gradual that parents hardly notice them. It might be an unfamiliar word, a new way of speaking, an unusual demand for a toy or a way of reacting to something that nobody at home has taught them. The first assumption is often that the child has picked it up from school, a friend or someone in the family. But what if the child hasn’t even started school?
For many children, a considerable part of their day is spent watching cartoons, videos and other content on screens. What begins as entertainment can introduce them to new words, interests and habits, some of which parents are pleased to see and others they find difficult to understand. A child might learn to count, recognise colours or speak more confidently, but could just as easily begin copying the behaviour of an online character or asking for things they have seen other children enjoying.
Parents try to manage what their children watch. They select educational programmes, restrict certain videos and pay for subscriptions to avoid advertisements. Yet controlling what appears next is not always straightforward. A video may end, another begins, and before long the child is watching something the parent never intended to show them. Even blocking a channel does not necessarily prevent similar content from appearing elsewhere.
It raises a question that many parents may not have considered: if digital platforms are constantly deciding what to recommend next, how much influence do those choices have on a child’s developing interests and behaviour? And how much control do parents really have?
For 34-year-old Sidrah Khan, the question has become increasingly relevant as her seven-year-old daughter has grown more interested in children’s vlogs on YouTube.
Sidrah makes a conscious effort to choose cartoons that combine entertainment with education. But she has noticed that her daughter can spend half an hour watching an educational programme, only to become more interested in a video that follows it, often featuring children showing off toys or lifestyles she would rather her daughter not imitate.
“Even if she watches educational content for half an hour, the next video might be something completely different. She watches it for just five or 10 minutes, but that is what she remembers the most,” says Sidrah.
The influence, she believes, is visible in the toys her daughter now wants and the accents, expressions and behaviour she sometimes copies while playing. What began as an effort to provide age-appropriate entertainment has left Sidrah questioning how much of her daughter’s interests are shaped by what appears on the screen.
Who is choosing what they watch?
Unlike traditional television, where programmes follow a scheduled lineup, video platforms offer a seemingly endless stream of content influenced by what they have watched previously, how long they watched it and the videos they interacted with.
According to Kamran Karim, who works as a social media analyst, recommendation systems are designed to identify viewing preferences and keep users engaged. Actions such as watching a video until the end, replaying it or spending longer on particular content can influence what the platform recommends next.
For children, this can mean repeatedly encountering similar videos, even when they have not actively searched for them. A child who watches a toy-unboxing video, for instance, may subsequently be shown more videos featuring toys, games or children displaying their possessions.
Karim believes this repetition can gradually narrow the range of content children encounter. Instead of discovering different subjects, they may continue watching variations of what has already captured their attention.
“The platform constructs an echo chamber based strictly on immediate past behaviour,” he says.
For Sidrah, this is particularly concerning when it comes to children’s vlogs. She has noticed that her daughter’s interests are increasingly influenced by the toys and lifestyles displayed by children online. Unlike visits to a toy shop, where her daughter could choose from what was available, online videos expose her to products and experiences that may not be accessible to her family.
Sidrah also finds it difficult to keep certain types of content away from her daughter. Although she monitors what appears on YouTube and uses the dislike option for videos she considers unsuitable, similar content sometimes returns through other channels.
The concern is not necessarily that children are watching something inappropriate. Rather, it is that repeated exposure can make particular products, activities and ways of behaving increasingly familiar, potentially influencing what children begin to want for themselves.
Karim argues that children’s preferences have always been shaped by their surroundings, including friends, family and popular culture. What has changed is the speed and frequency with which digital platforms can expose them to particular trends.
Yet, the same recommendation systems can also introduce children to subjects they might otherwise never encounter. Educational videos about science, languages, art or technology can encourage new interests, particularly when children are guided towards suitable content.
From screens to real life
While some parents worry about the interests their children develop through online videos, others have seen how the same platforms can help them learn. For Farwa Naqvi, whose son is three years old, programmes such as Ms Rachel and Pakkay Dost have played a positive role in his early language development.
Farwa usually chooses the programmes herself, although her son occasionally manages to get hold of her phone and select something on his own. She has noticed him learning new words and imitating the accents of cartoon characters when speaking to family members and other people.
“His oral skills developed a lot by watching shows like Miss Rachel and Pakkay Dost,” she says.
But not everything he encounters has the same effect. Farwa recalls a cartoon series that appeared in YouTube’s recommendations after her son watched it once or twice. She noticed that he became unusually energetic after watching it, something that concerned her enough to block the channel. Yet similar videos continued appearing through other channels.
“He watched it once or twice on YouTube and despite blocking the channel, similar content keeps reappearing from different channels,” Farwa says.
What children pick up from their screens is also becoming noticeable in classrooms. Erum Muhammad Ayub, a junior teacher at a private school, says students frequently bring online trends into their conversations and activities. As a computing teacher, she has watched children develop common interests around games such as Roblox, which she believes can encourage communication and teamwork.
What interests her more, however, is how quickly these trends come and go.
“A trend typically lasts only two to three days in my classroom. After that, students forget it and switch to a different activity or trend,” she says.
Children may spend a few days repeating a particular phrase, joke or activity before moving on to something else. According to Erum, they often imitate what they have seen without necessarily developing a deeper understanding of it.
She has also noticed changes in how students engage with lessons. Keeping their attention for an entire class has become more challenging, prompting her to divide lessons into shorter segments.
“Their attention diverts very quickly, so I now plan lessons in shorter segments to hold their focus,” she explains.
Although Erum suspects that fast-paced online content may be contributing to this shift, she acknowledges that the connection cannot be treated as a direct cause.
There are positive changes too. Erum says children sometimes arrive in class already familiar with subjects they have encountered through educational videos.
“They often come to class already informed about a topic. When the teacher’s questioning technique is good, they respond very well, speak with sound knowledge, and support their answers with examples,” she says.
She has also noticed students becoming more confident expressing themselves in front of others.
For parents such as Farwa, these contrasting experiences make it difficult to decide how much control to exercise. The same platform that introduces a child to educational programmes may also repeatedly recommend content that a parent would rather avoid, leaving families to navigate the benefits and concerns together.
Taking back control
For parents, deciding what their children should watch is one thing. Making sure they continue watching only that content is another.Â
Farwa has found a relatively simple way to manage some of this. Instead of handing her three-year-old son a smartphone, she usually plays his favourite programmes on television, where he cannot scroll through videos as easily or switch between them without assistance.
“We usually put on shows on TV instead of putting them on our phones so he won’t be able to scroll,” she says.
The arrangement gives Farwa greater control over what he watches, although her son has begun insisting on particular programmes. She also tries to limit content that she feels affects his attention and activity levels. However, keeping him away from certain videos has proved difficult, particularly when similar material appears in recommendations.
Sidrah faces a comparable challenge with her seven-year-old daughter. She monitors what her child watches and sometimes asks her to change a video if she comes across something unsuitable. She has also tried using the dislike option to discourage certain recommendations, but says similar videos continue appearing, occasionally uploaded by different channels.
Even YouTube Kids, which is designed for younger audiences, has not entirely addressed her concerns. Sidrah says she still comes across recommendations she would prefer her daughter not to watch.
Beyond manually monitoring videos, parents also have access to controls offered by digital platforms. TikTok’s Family Pairing feature, for instance, allows parents to link their accounts with those of their teenagers and manage certain settings remotely. These include daily screen time limits, Restricted Mode to reduce exposure to unsuitable content, and keyword filters to limit particular types of recommendations. YouTube offers supervised experiences through which parents can select content settings and disable autoplay, while Instagram and Snapchat provide family supervision tools to help parents monitor aspects of their teenagers’ online activity.
Such features can be particularly useful for parents who cannot constantly supervise what their children are watching. However, they are not foolproof. Content filters may miss certain videos, and restrictions on one account cannot prevent children from encountering similar material elsewhere. Their effectiveness also depends on children’s ages, the platforms they use and how the controls are configured. Rather than replacing parental involvement, these tools provide an additional way for families to manage children’s digital experiences.
Despite these safeguards, Karim believes parents should not expect platform controls to manage every aspect of their children’s viewing experiences. Blocking a particular video or channel, he explains, does not necessarily prevent similar content from appearing elsewhere.
He feels parents need to take a greater interest in what their children are actually watching. Rather than simply telling a child to stop watching a particular video, he suggests sitting with them occasionally and talking about what is happening on screen. If a creator is showing off expensive toys or behaving in an exaggerated manner, for instance, parents can explain that what children see online may be very different from everyday life.
Karim also points out that children need other ways to spend their time. Books, sports, art and outdoor activities can give them opportunities to discover interests that have nothing to do with their screens. For him, the issue is not whether children should watch online videos at all, but whether those videos are becoming their main source of entertainment and new experiences.
Beyond the next recommendation
For parents such as Sidrah, keeping children away from screens altogether is neither the intention nor necessarily the answer. She has seen her daughter learn useful things from educational programmes, just as she has watched her pick up habits and interests from videos she would rather she had not seen.
What troubles her is how difficult it has become to separate the two. Even when she chooses a programme herself, there is no guarantee that the next video will be something she approves of. And as her daughter grows older, deciding what to watch is increasingly becoming a choice she wants to make herself.
The influence of friends, family and school has always played a part in shaping what children like. Online videos have added another source of influence, one that follows children into their homes and can introduce them to new interests at any time. Some of those interests may last, while others disappear as quickly as the next trend arrives.
For Sidrah, the challenge is to give her daughter the freedom to explore and learn without leaving every new discovery to whatever appears next on her screen. She can choose the first cartoon, monitor the recommendations and encourage other activities, but she cannot always predict what will catch her daughter’s attention.
And perhaps that is what makes parenting in the age of recommendations particularly difficult. It is no longer only a question of what children choose to watch, but also of what they are being encouraged to watch next.
