YouTube Kids: The App Economy and Mobile Parenting

Abstract

This research investigates the growing relationship between media industries and the everyday viewing patterns and lives of young children. Specifically, this research focuses on the development of the YouTube Kids app, with well over 10 million downloads, which seeks to capture and monetize youth attention. These channels have taken advantage of emerging mobile and tablet technologies to target very young children and infants (aged 0–5 years). The technologies are also a part of larger parenting practices through the watching of televisual content by children on mobile phones and tablets. The rise of mobile parenting is allied with a confluence of digital technology, parenting practices, and the configuring of young children as a target demographic. Part of the work the YouTube Kids app performs is to corral young children into a controlled space without unexpected participation and play, where a more monolithic category of “child” or “kid” viewership can be codified and marketed to within the constraints of the app.