YouTube's CEO limits his kids' social media use – other tech bosses do the same
54 comments
·December 13, 2025pj_mukh
Pooge
Their point is that despite being the designers of such systems, they prevent their own children from using them. Akin to a drug dealer not consuming what he sells.
Thorrez
>“We do limit their time on YouTube and other platforms and other forms of media. On weekdays we tend to be more strict, on weekends we tend to be less so. We’re not perfect by any stretch,”
>He stressed “everything in moderation” is what works best for him and his wife, and that extends to other online services and platforms.
>YouTube’s former CEO Susan Wojcicki, also barred her children from browsing videos on the app, unless they were using YouTube Kids. She also limited the amount of time they spent on the platform.
So they're not completely banning their kids from using YouTube. The current YouTube CEO uses a time limit. The previous YouTube CEO uses a time limit and limits usage to the YouTube Kids app.
Disclosure: I work at Google but not on YouTube.
hamburglar
Breaking: Willy Wonka execs don’t let their kids eat unlimited amount of candy.
See how uninteresting and obvious that is?
pj_mukh
Personally haven’t met any parents who don’t know this already.
The problem is childcare not knowledge.
techblueberry
Although I hate social media with a passion and would be fine if the government banned it outright, I don’t think this is a fair reading.
Do toy manufacturers let their kids play with their toys 24 hours a day and not go outside or do homework? Video game devs? Parents are supposed to help their kids limit their time in everything.
‘He stressed “everything in moderation”’
lesuorac
I would expect an x-ray technician to limit their kid's time in x-rays.
It doesn't mean kids should never get an x-ray.
Sometimes moderation means complete abstinence but generally not.
websiteapi
You cannot be serious with this comparison.
concinds
You’re the one bringing the conversation back to superficials (blaming society and stuff you have no control over) instead of digging deeper. You don’t need to be rich or stay-at-home to be involved in your kids’ life. Restricting tech use is common-sense and free. Books are cheaper than an iPad for each kid.
pj_mukh
I have no control over my government? News to me.
Literally every other country provides significantly more childcare and solves problems instead of going on endless Ayn Randian lectures. Please stop.
mattgreenrocks
All ages benefit from time-limited exposure to social media. We have a term for it now: brainrot. Fully convinced it is the cigarettes of our generation: ubiquitous enough to be pervasive despite negative externalities.
Thorrez
>All ages benefit from time-limited exposure to social media.
As compared to what? To no exposure? Or to unlimited exposure?
Jaxan
As opposed to unlimited exposure. There are also many adults that spend several hours per day on social media. It’s not good for society.
elestor
Unlimited.
colechristensen
"brainrot" is not used that way
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brainrot
The best definition I see is
> the crippling addiction to low effort content
But also have seen it used plenty to refer to the low effort content itself
Brainrot is a small portion of social media
oersted
I have seen it used plenty by younger people even in a positive sense as a genre label for the aesthetics and humor of their generation.
rightbyte
Ye and Zuckerberg plugs the laptop mic with a dud cable.
I guess most parents try to limit screen time. But some have a hard time doing it since it is a great babysitter.
I try to do a total blockade of YT at home for kids. Watching other kids be hypnothized by the feed years ago was enough. The algorithm seems to converge to unboxing videos and surreal spam.
concinds
> But some have a hard time doing it since it is a great babysitter.
We should be clearer on what it means. An iPad will satisfy their need for stimulation but not their developmental emotional and social needs, nor their fine motor skills and executive functioning skills (and it likely harms the latter two, unlike old-school toys). Boredom and non-excessive stimulation levels are essential to letting the child’s inner world develop. Giving young kids iPads so they’ll be quiet is a normalized form of neglect.
politelemon
It's worse, iPads don't satisfy the simulation but instead create a harmful dependency on it. I'll go as far to say that giving young kids iPads is a form of abuse that doesn't get called out.
seanmcdirmid
iPads are so easy to lockdown though, Apple did a good job on their parental controls. Roblox is the main brain stealer these days with a horrible social component, we only give our kid an hour a week now and even Thats probably too much.
concinds
Significant emotional neglect will put you in the 1st or 2nd decile of emotional health. It can make you a total train wreck. I don’t think every bad thing needs to be abuse.
rightbyte
> We should be clearer on what it means.
In this occurrence I mean "distract the kids with something such that they don't hurt them self, fight or destroy stuff so the parent can do X" such as doing the disches or resting.
Not like, great at raising the kids in some moral sense. In which YT etc is terrible.
I cheat on fancy restaurants and might hand the kids some screen (not YT) to give us a chance to finnish the meal. Stuff like that, but overused.
concinds
Harm is a spectrum, but being able to sit still, and not harm yourself and destroy things, is a skill kids need to learn and using an iPad for that can stunt their growth.
seneca
> Giving young kids iPads so they’ll be quiet is a normalized form of neglect.
I'd say it's closer to outright abuse. One of the better things you can do is a parent is seek out a community where this sort of thing is frowned upon. It's much harder to control when those around you think it's ok. I wish that were easier for people to find.
leosanchez
> Ye and Zuckerberg plugs the laptop mic with a dud cable.
Are you talking about Kanye West ? also can you expand what this means? "plugs the laptop mic with a dud cable"
myko
What they're saying is these folks don't trust the privacy of their hardware, they use a dud cable to block the microphone from listening.
I think what they're getting at is people close to the situation (not sure why Ye is in the privacy discussion, but Zuck certainly is) don't trust the controls in place.
null
rightbyte
Appearantly there is a mixup risk using "ye" between "Kayne West" and "yeah" I wasn't aware of.
kankerlijer
I can think of a lot of reasons why someone like Zuck would be targeted for surveillance but the rest of us are fine.
decremental
[dead]
colechristensen
A lot of parents also drug their kids A LOT to get them to behave the way they want, sleep the way they want. "Kids melatonin", Benadryl, essential oils (plenty of which DO have some drug effect though not often what is claimed)
An iPad addiction is arguably better than being sedated so you don't bother your parents.
markus_zhang
It is easy to limit at home, but what if all of his/her friends are on social media? It is so difficult nowadays because many parents DGAF.
websiteapi
It’s not just about limiting - why don’t these people make it easier on the apps themselves to do it? We know why.
seanmcdirmid
It’s more convenient to use Apple’s parental control feature because you can set limits in one place.
Waterluvian
YouTube Kids itself has a parental locked section where you can set a timer. The rest just don’t feel like they’re meant for kids at all. And that leaves adolescents in such a vulnerable spot.
websiteapi
The kids or non kids distinction is irrelevant. It’ll be clear once most of the world implements child block (which I personally disagree with). They’re gonna get decimated.
markus_zhang
Just throw it out of the window. I'm not going to give my 6y son access to a smart phone until he is much older, ideally when he is in senior high school. The only issue is that his future friends may not have the same idea, so it's going to be extremely difficult when he grows older. Fortunately we have a mobile ban in the school, so at least they know this is not a good thing.
seanmcdirmid
> The only issue is that his future friends may not have the same idea, so it's going to be extremely difficult when he grows older.
Third grade and it’s already happening: My kid has already had trouble in his social circle at school because we made him cut back his Roblox time by a lot. It’s not even that anyone plays at school, but supposedly almost all the boys (and many girls) are playing after school.
Forgeties79
The problem with this approach is their peers. Prohibition culture does not work if it’s so easy to access it elsewhere. My parents learned this when they tried to restrict video games strictly to the weekends when I was a kid haha!
I find having conversations with parents at school and the parents of their friends leads to the best results (so far, I’ve only been at it a few years for my kiddos so we’ll see I guess longterm). If you’re all vaguely on the same page it just seems to make things a little easier. If that’s not an option, then just don’t be the first person to buy one and when all their peers start having certain technology you give them access too, but you sit down and talk to them about it or find ways to restrict the faucet.
For instance, when it became clear YouTube was not going to be completely eradicated from my house, I just ripped a few videos and added them to my Plex server. They get to watch a little bit of nonsense content, but they’re not just getting flooded with more of it constantly (or ads). As a result those YT videos are just one among several things they watch. It isn’t special or all consuming.
Video games have also been interesting. Most of the parents I know have, like me, adopted to use older stuff and/or just not let them get on the Internet.
Ultimately at some point you have to do some combination of “controlling the faucet,” watching what your kids are watching so you know what’s going on, and ultimately educating them/giving them context to the media they are enjoying.
mrkramer
Instead of teaching kids self control they snatch stuff from them left and right.
Xiol
You clearly don't have children.
concinds
Meanwhile “normal” (neglectful) parents give iPads or internet-connected computers to 5-year olds. They never stood a chance.
petercooper
Somehow we've not had the problem (yet). They get bored quickly and self-limit themselves, though we reserve the right to look at what they're up to whenever we see fit. Having lots of extracurricular activities might be helping, but my introverted, nerdy self spent way more time glued to a CRT as a teen. Hmm, maybe that's the secret.. having a nerd for a dad makes tech look uncool! :-D
mikeodds
I don’t think this idea is that controversial? Most (?) people would agree watching YouTube 16 hrs a day is bad, but agree there is also a benefit to some of the content available.
dredmorbius
It's almost as if ... being able to download specific content for offline viewing ... might be a far preferable option in terms of selection, control, and not getting sucked into an algorithmic wormhole.
michaeljx
I am sure the coca-cola boss limits his kids soft drink consumption too.
jasonsb
Does it really matter? Even if a billionaire’s kid gets hooked on Coca-Cola or social media, they still have vastly more resources (therapy, education, support) to overcome it. Meanwhile, kids in underprivileged communities don’t get that safety net. For CEOs like Zuckerberg or Coca-Cola’s leadership, that disparity is just a small price to pay for the profits their products generate.
michaeljx
It's part of the parental responsibility to provide enough structure and instill enough discipline to your kids so that they grow to be complete persons. Sure it will be nice if social media was restricted like tobacco, and I am sure one day it will, but you can't relegate all responsibility for everything to the state. I don't want to live in a bubble wrapped society for the sake of the children.
adverbly
This has been the case for a while. Look up Waldorf schools. Screen free.
dmurray
I attended a screen free school, but back then we just called it a school.
hamburglar
Careful. Waldorf schools have some great ideas but they’re also rife with crackpottery and are somewhat cult-like in many ways.
RHSman2
CEO of tobacco do the same. What’s your point? We sell things that are bad for humans. It’s a significant part of our global GDP
“BREAKING: Rich people can purchase adequate childcare”
Dig a little deeper CNBC.