[Developmental Disabilities] "YouTube again!?" Is YouTube necessary or unnecessary for children with ASD?
"Stop it already!"
"That's enough!"
"You'll ruin your eyes!"
YouTube when you wake up in the morning.
YouTube when you get home from school.
YouTube while eating.
YouTube after a bath.
YouTube before going to bed.
Don't those voices
echo through your house every day?
If you take it away, they throw a tantrum.
If you hide it, they search for it.
If you try to confiscate it, it becomes a major incident.
"My child,
is addicted to YouTube..."
I think many people feel anxious about that.
Smartphone brain.
Addiction.
Vision loss.
Decline in communication skills.
The warnings from society
are truly heard in abundance.
But, I want you to wait a moment.
For children with ASD traits,
YouTube is not just entertainment.
Rather,
in a sense, there is an aspect where it is "necessary."
Today, I will try writing about that.
The reason why children with ASD and YouTube are such a perfect match
Why are children with ASD
so hooked on YouTube?
The reason is simple.
It is because it is too compatible with their brain characteristics.
Let's look at them one by one.
First, predictability.
On YouTube,
you can play the same video over and over again.
You know exactly
what will happen next.
The ASD brain has a trait of
feeling strong anxiety
toward "unpredictable things."
Real life is a series of unpredictable events.
You don't know what will happen in the classroom.
You don't know how friends will react.
You don't know what the teacher will say.
But inside YouTube,
everything is perfectly predictable.
No matter how many times you watch it, the same lines,
the same developments, the same punchlines.
For a child with ASD,
this is a world more reassuring than anything else.
Next, the control of stimuli.
Volume, brightness, pausing, rewinding.
Everything can be operated by their own will.
For children with sensory sensitivities,
this is a matter of life and death.
In real life,
you cannot control sounds or lights yourself.
The hustle and bustle of the classroom,
the sounds on the train,
the fluorescent lights in the supermarket.
In the outside world,
stimuli are things that rain down unilaterally.
But inside YouTube,
all stimuli are in your own hands.
If it's too loud, turn down the volume.
If it's scary, stop it.
If you want to see it again, rewind it.
This sense of "being able to control it yourself"
is what calms the brain of a child with ASD.
And, digging deep into specialized interests.
Trains, dinosaurs, Minecraft,
tokusatsu, cooking, insects, space, game commentary.
The "likes" of a child with ASD
are truly deep.
YouTube responds to that depth
almost infinitely.
You can dig as much as you want
into the details of information that you could
never get on terrestrial television.
Even just for trains,
you can watch everything from train model numbers, running sounds, and driver's cab footage,
to documentaries about the manufacturing plants.
Everything is available.
Finally, a buffer for sociality.
Direct human relationships
are truly exhausting for children with ASD.
Reading facial expressions.
Reading tone.
Reading the room.
That burden
is many times greater than what neurotypical people imagine.
But the "one-way relationship"
with YouTubers through the screen is comfortable.
YouTube plays the role of
recovering the brain
exhausted by real-life human relationships.
In other words, YouTube is
not an "escape" for children with ASD.
It is "replenishment."
The often-overlooked role that YouTube plays
While society emphasizes only the negative aspects of YouTube,
for children with ASD,
it plays a significant role.
A cool-down device.
A child who was over-adapting at school
gluing themselves to YouTube after coming home
is a brain recovery behavior.
In the previous article,
I wrote about over-adaptation.
A child who gives their all at school
and comes home on the verge of running out of gas.
What such a child needs is
not conversation,
not studying,
not extracurricular lessons,
but "time where nothing is expected of them."
YouTube provides that.
The "time spent idly watching YouTube"
is actually necessary recharging
to go to school tomorrow.
It also has a side as a learning tool.
Minecraft building techniques,
English, programming, history, chemistry.
It is not rare for children to learn more deeply than they do in school classes.
It is not that they "can only focus on what they like," but rather that "they can focus exceptionally well on what they like," which is a strength of ASD.
YouTube is a place where that strength can be maximized.
My son also has a mountain of information that I don't know about in certain fields.
It is knowledge he learned on YouTube, but it is definitely expanding his world.
The aspect of it being a point of contact with society cannot be overlooked either.
Through YouTubers with the same hobbies or viewer communities, they can learn about the existence of "people similar to themselves," which is hard to find in real life.
A place where they can feel "I am not alone."
A child who feels out of place in a real classroom finds someone on YouTube who talks about trains or dinosaurs with the same level of passion as them.
That is a small salvation.
It would be a huge waste to dismiss all of this as "just killing time."
The still-concerning issue of "overdoing it"
I have defended it this far, but of course, I don't mean to say that "unlimited use is fine."
The problem is not "watching YouTube," but rather "other activities decreasing drastically" and "losing control."
Here are the signs to watch out for.
They are watching it even at the expense of sleep. They cannot let go of it even while eating, and their meal rhythm is disrupted. When you take YouTube away, they have intense tantrums that last for a long time. The time they spend moving their body has become almost zero. Their interest in other activities they used to like has disappeared.
Short-term tantrums are normal. Anyone would be grumpy if their fun time was interrupted.
The problem is the "degree."
If these signs start to add up, it is a sign to review the balance of their entire life.
However, what is important is that the cause is not YouTube alone.
The reason is often that
there is nowhere else to escape to.
They are exhausted at school.
At home, YouTube is their only
means of recovery.
If this dynamic is established,
simply taking away YouTube
will not solve anything.
What a child who appears to be addicted to YouTube
truly needs is not
a "ban on YouTube" but
an "alternative safe escape."
Tips for communication and interaction
Why saying "Stop it!"
does not work.
When the brain is immersed in YouTube,
a sudden "Stop it" is,
for a child with ASD,
a cognitive emergency brake.
The "unpredictable transitions"
that I have written about repeatedly in previous articles
are putting a heavy load on their brain.
That is why the more you yell,
the more intense the tantrums become.
I will introduce effective approaches.
First, give them a heads-up.
"You have 10 minutes left"
"Take a break once this video is over"
Please communicate the timing of the end
in advance.
Instead of a sudden stop,
change it to a predictable end.
Just doing this will significantly reduce
tantrums during transitions.
It is also effective to divide time
by "video units" rather than time.
Rather than "until 30 minutes,"
"until 3 more videos"
is easier for a child with ASD to understand.
Because concrete units like "number of videos"
are easier to process
than the abstract concept of time.
Being able to finish watching to the end
rather than being cut off mid-way
leads to higher satisfaction,
and as a result, makes it easier to transition.
It is also important to suggest alternative activities.
Just saying "Stop it"
creates a void in the brain.
"When you're done with YouTube,
let's make dinner together"
"Shall we go for a walk outside?"
Try presenting it as a set
with the next fun activity.
It changes from a feeling of being "deprived"
to a feeling of "moving on to the next thing."
And, take an interest in the content.
This is surprisingly important.
Ask "What are you watching?" and
try entering the world
that your child loves.
By sharing it,
YouTube changes from
"something I get scolded by my parents for"
to "something I can talk to my parents about."
It can even become a conversation starter.
In our house,
I sometimes bring up
the YouTubers my son likes.
Like, "That person posted this video recently, didn't they?"
Just by doing that, my son
starts talking with surprising joy.
Finally, design family time
separately.
Instead of banning YouTube,
secure a separate
"time without YouTube."
Everyone sits at the table for meals.
Read books for 30 minutes before bed.
Go outside on Saturday mornings.
A "separate slot" is easier for children to accept
than a prohibition.
Letting go of your own guilt as a parent
Lastly, something I want to tell parents.
"I might be a bad parent
for letting them watch YouTube all the time"
To those who are blaming themselves like that.
Social media and parenting books are overflowing with information saying,
"Let's reduce screen time."
There are truly many parents who feel down when comparing themselves to others.
However,
there is no need to apply standards for neurotypical children
directly to children with ASD.
For children with developmental characteristics,
I hope you will not deny the aspect that YouTube has become a "necessary tool."
If used with appropriate allocation rather than being glued to it all day,
it is not "bad parenting" but
"parenting that suits their characteristics."
You can let go of the guilt.
YouTube is a tool, it depends on how you handle it
YouTube is
neither an enemy nor an ally.
It is just a tool.
For children with ASD characteristics,
it is a tool that is too compatible.
That is precisely why,
depending on how it is handled,
it can become an "addiction" or
a "tool for growth."
What is important is
not the binary choice of "prohibition or neglect."
It is about creating "how to engage with it"
together with your child.
Before lamenting, "They are always watching YouTube,"
I want you to pause for a moment and observe,
"What is this child gaining from YouTube?"
Surely,
there are things that will become visible.
And that observation itself
will be the first step to understanding your child's world
more deeply than anyone else.
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