By Clare Duffy, NCS
New York (NCS) — YouTube will now let parents restrict the period of time their teens can spend scrolling via its short-form video characteristic, Shorts, or block all of them collectively.
The choice is a part of a gaggle of recent parental controls the favored video platform announced on Wednesday. YouTube, like many tech platforms, has ramped up efforts to guard younger customers in latest months, in response to rising scrutiny from households, advocates and lawmakers.
The choice to endlessly scroll via short videos could make social media platforms addictive, particularly for younger individuals, parents have argued.
Parents supervising their teen’s account will now have the ability to set a time restrict on Shorts, ranging from two hours to zero minutes. For instance, parents “can set the Shorts feed limit to zero when they want their teen to use YouTube to focus on homework, and change it to 60 minutes during a long car trip to be entertained,” YouTube mentioned.
Parents will additionally have the ability to set customized bedtime and “take a break” reminders for their children — automated variations of which YouTube already applies by default for customers below the age of 18.
YouTube is including a brand new sign-up course of to make it simpler for parents to create supervised accounts for their children. It will additionally simplify the method of switching between minor and grownup accounts on shared gadgets.
And the platform is updating its tips for the kinds of content material that will be really helpful and accessible to teen customers. It will prioritize videos centered round “curiosity and inspiration,” “building life skills and experiences” and “credible information that supports wellbeing,” and different constructive classes, YouTube mentioned. Teens are already blocked from repeatedly viewing videos that would ship them down harmful content material rabbit holes, similar to these idealizing sure physique sorts.
The updates come after YouTube said last year it could use synthetic intelligence to guess customers’ ages, and would place suspected teen customers into its extra protecting under-18 settings no matter what birthdate they supplied at join. Other main on-line platforms, together with Instagram, ChatGPT and Character.AI, have additionally just lately rolled out further parental controls and content material restrictions for younger customers.
YouTube dad or mum firm Google has additionally been within the highlight this week following a viral LinkedIn post. Online baby security advocate Melissa McKay posted screenshots that confirmed Google alerting her almost-13-year-old son that he’d quickly have the choice to take away parental supervision from his account.
“Google is asserting authority over a boundary that does not belong to them,” McKay, president on the nonprofit Digital Childhood Institute, mentioned within the publish.
Google has up to date its coverage to require parental approval earlier than customers 13 and older can take away parental supervision of their account, Google Senior Director for Privacy, Safety and Security Kate Charlet wrote in a LinkedIn post responding to McKay. The change builds on the corporate’s coverage of emailing each parents and children when an account will quickly have the choice to show off supervision.
“These changes better ensure protections stay in place until both the parent and teen feel ready for the next step,” Charlet wrote.
The-NCS-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.