“Sometimes people on YouTube are real,but sometimes not”: Children’s understanding of the reality status of YouTube

Abstract

This study describes how 3- to 8-year-olds’ justifications for their reality status judgements about people on YouTube relates to their age and previous YouTube watching experience. Using a within-subjects design, children were asked about their beliefs regarding the reality status of a purported YouTube video and provided justifications for their responses. Caregivers provided information about children’s home media use and children were asked about their favorite YouTube videos. Results suggest that increased age—and not amount of experience with YouTube—relates to a more nuanced understanding of YouTube as evidenced by a consideration of the medium in justifying reality status judgments.

Keywords

Early childhood reality status YouTube

YouTube has only grown in popularity with young children since its launch in 2005 (ParentsTogether Foundation, 2020). According to a 2020 report by Common Sense Media, at least 33% of children in the United States aged 0–8 watch online videos every day—with an average viewing time of 39 min per day (Rideout and Robb, 2020). This amount more than doubled in the time between 2017 to 2020. Similarly, the Pew Research Center (2020) reported that 53% of US children under 11 years of age watch YouTube every day. However, for all of YouTube’s popularity, very little is known about how children understand YouTube as a medium. The goal of the current study is to understand how young children’s justifications for their judgements about the reality status of YouTube may be related to (1) age, and (2) experience with the medium. How children conceptualize YouTube as a medium is likely to influence their interactions with the platform. Learning more about the factors influencing how children conceptualize YouTube’s place in the world of digital media may inform how such platforms can be better designed to reduce risks, optimize positive impact on child wellbeing, and help educators and caregivers make informed decisions about monitoring and supporting children’s interactions with YouTube.

The popularity of YouTube

While certainly in demand before 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated YouTube’s meteoric rise. A survey of caregivers administered during the height of the pandemic found that over 78% of young children in the United States were watching YouTube—making it the most commonly viewed video platform (ParentsTogether Foundation, 2020). Perhaps one reason why YouTube is so popular is because children can find videos about almost any topic and from many different sources, but this diversity might also lead children to be confused about the real or not real nature of people they see on the platform.

While there are other platforms, like TikTok and Instagram, that allow for user-generated video content, YouTube is the most pervasive example of this category of a platform with a mix of user-generated and commercially-produced content directed at and used by young children. Children can watch content created by trusted media companies such as PBS Kids and Nickelodeon, videos created by YouTubers (a term to denote professional YouTube content creators), as well as videos made by their own friends, family members, and teachers.

An additional distinctive characteristic of YouTube is that children can become cyberflaneurs (Marsh, 2016), meaning that they do not just enjoy the media, but they also become part of affinity spaces where individuals gather based on shared interests and activities (Gee, 2005). These affinity spaces are participatory in that children feel that they are part of a group of similar others and can play alongside the content creators (Nicoll and Nansen, 2018)—for example, children can be a part of a community of fans of a particular gaming YouTuber whose videos the children play along with on their own gaming devices. However, as cyberflaneurs, they can also take pleasure from simply watching others play games and do not feel necessarily drawn to do so themselves (Marsh, 2016). These characteristics of the YouTube platform distinguish it from more traditional media like television and digital games and make it an important domain to investigate to provide guidance for industry about designing similar platforms and for users (e.g. families/teachers) to teach children about media literacy and how to understand the content they view on such platforms.

But what are children actually watching on YouTube? Rideout and Robb (2020) recently found that parents of children 0–8 in the United States report that “learning videos” are the most popular genre—with 53% of children often or sometimes watching these videos. Learning videos come in various forms, including those that tackle traditional academic content, such as literacy and mathematics, as well as those that present other to-be-learned material, including gaming and sports tutorials (Radesky et al., 2020). Thirty-four percent of children frequently watch these types of tutorials or how-to videos that teach them how to cook, dance, build LEGO scenes, and complete many other projects or tasks (Rideout and Robb, 2020). Finally, 25% of children often or sometimes watch videos that demonstrate how to play video games. All three of these video types impart new knowledge—whether it be in traditional academic subjects or regarding children’s out-of-school interests.

It is clear from these data that YouTube is a popular source for learning new information. Research does, in fact, suggest that YouTube is able to support learning by creating a space where creators and viewers come together around shared interests and generate new ideas that might not emerge in other contexts (Lange, 2019). YouTube also offers opportunities for incidental learning; for instance, by watching a video of a “last to leave challenge” featuring a pool slowly being filled with ice blocks, children might also pick up facts about the states of water (Lange, 2019).

Yet very little research has investigated how children understand the people, characters, and situations that they view on YouTube. Similarly, the potential of YouTube videos to support child learning is still unclear (Izci et al., 2019). Several recent studies have examined children’s exposure to different types of content on the platform—with a particular focus on inappropriate content—but have not examined child perspectives (Neumann and Herodotou, 2020; Radesky et al., 2020). The increases and changes in viewing habits due to the COVID-19 pandemic have only increased the need to investigate how children reason about the reality status of the people on YouTube. Research with other video content suggests that if children believe that a television video is not real, they are less likely to learn from it (Mares and Sivakumar, 2014), suggesting that children’s understanding of YouTube as a medium might have important influences on their ability or tendency to learn from it.

Theoretical approach

A significant body of literature in developmental psychology examines children’s “reality status judgments.” In this context, reality status judgments refer to children’s responses to a researcher’s question about whether a given entity is “real” or “not real” (Woolley and Ghoassainy, 2013). This is often defined as whether or not the person, character, thing, et cetera really exists in the world. These judgments can be ascertained for known categories, such as mermaids or astronauts, for known individuals, such as Santa Claus or the president, or for novel entities presented to children via images or labels.

Although Piaget (1929) argued that children are unable to definitively make the distinction between reality and non-reality until around the age of 12, more recent research suggests that children can grasp the distinction at a simplistic level by the age of 3 (Woolley and Ghossainy, 2013), such as understanding the difference between something imagined and reality (Woolley and Wellman, 1993). At the same time, children still do not fully understand the distinction, with many believing in the reality of magical or impossible events and incorrectly dismissing unfamiliar content as impossible or pretend well into middle childhood (Mares and Bonus, 2019).

Although prior research has been conducted on children’s reality status judgments of characters or events from television and storybooks (Corriveau et al., 2009; Li et al., 2015; Woolley and Cox, 2007; Wright et al., 1994), YouTube represents an under-researched context for reality status judgements. Videos on YouTube can be real or not real (as can television or books), but they often feature some gradation of the two that is not typically present in other media types frequently used by children. For example, children may watch videos of (real) gamers playing (not real) Minecraft. Thus, asking children whether people on YouTube are real or not real provides interesting data about their perceptions, but here, we are particularly interested in how children justify their responses, as these justifications may provide further insight into their cognitive processes (Chandler, 1997).

Children’s justifications about knowledge and beliefs

Justifications of knowledge are the ways in which people weigh the evidence for and against different claims against theory and experience (Burr and Hoffer, 2002). A substantial body of research has investigated children’s justifications for reality status judgments as a way to shed light on the mechanisms underlying children’s choices. In these studies, after children produce a reality status judgment they are asked about their reasoning and their justifications are then coded by researchers into a number of mutually exclusive categories depending on the specific context and research questions (e.g. Bunce and Harris, 2013; Corriveau et al., 2009). These categories often show age-related change, which researchers interpret as reflecting children’s maturing understanding of the phenomena (e.g. Li et al., 2015).

Reflecting this previous work, the current study draws on the theoretical approach developed by Woolley and Ghossainy (2013), which states that cognitive development involves a decreasing reliance on an individual’s own experience and an increasing consideration of other sources of information. This theory argues that young children use their previous experiences to inform their beliefs about the world, and to inform their beliefs about the reality status of novel entities specifically. With age and the development of more advanced cognitive abilities, children come to rely less on their own experiences and more on other sources of information, such as testimony from others and information from authority figures. Indeed, research suggests there is a developmental trajectory in justifications, with preschool-aged children relying primarily on personal experience to justify how they know something–such as whether one person is right while another is wrong about a fact or interpretation–while elementary school–aged children still use personal experience, but are more likely to also appeal to authority figures when they feel that their experience is not enough (Mansfield and Clinchy, 1985).

We posit that children’s justifications of their beliefs about the characteristics of YouTube may be affected by (1) their age, as they begin to rely less on their own experience and more on knowledge about the medium, and (2) their level of YouTube viewing, as additional experience with YouTube may encourage them to consider the features of the medium in their justification.

Effect of age on children’s understanding of the reality status of YouTube

Although there is little previous research investigating children’s perceptions of YouTube videos’ reality status, we can learn from studies investigating perceptions of television, as prior research shows similarities in how children respond to and use information from this medium (Dugan et al., 2010). This existing literature suggests that there are age-related differences in how children perceive the people and characters that they view on television. Younger children (3-4-years-old) are more likely to confuse characters with the actors portraying them (Goldstein and Bloom, 2015) than older children (5-year-olds), and those under the age of five are less likely than older children to understand that the people they see in videos can be either real or not real (Li et al., 2015; Wright et al., 1994).

Li and colleagues (2019) found additional neuropsychological as well as behavioral differences between children and adults’ reality status judgements about television using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Data demonstrated greater activation in the prefrontal cortex for children 5–7 years of age than for adults when deciding about the reality status of television clips—which suggests that children draw on greater cognitive capacity to make these decisions than adults do (Li et al., 2019).

Developmental change has also been demonstrated in how children use information about television as medium—such as what is and is not possible in the context of a television program—to justify their beliefs about its reality status (Chandler, 1997; Hodge and Tripp, 1986). In a study with 7-12-year-olds, Morison and colleagues (1981) found that 7- and 8-year-olds were more likely than older children to use the presence of television-specific features, like stunts, camera tricks, and props, to determine the reality status of programs. Hodge and Tripp (1986) found similar results, with 8–9-year-old children being more likely than older children to reference “formal features,” such as television production techniques, as key clues to television programs’ reality status. Such formal feature justifications grow in sophistication with age and experience as children combine their knowledge of the medium with their knowledge of the wider world (Chandler, 1997; Hodge and Tripp, 1986).

However, these studies focused only on television and did not include children younger than 6 years of age. Additionally, YouTube is a more nuanced medium than television with distinct characteristics. People on YouTube can be actors playing characters, influencers advertising a product, or everyday people making videos for fun—or some combination of these scenarios. Examining a younger age range and considering children’s justifications for their reality status judgments allows us to further flesh out the thought processes that underlie these beliefs. We hypothesize that older children will demonstrate a more sophisticated understanding by commenting on multifaceted features of YouTube as a medium. It may be that by the early elementary years, children provide different types of explanations for their beliefs than preschool-age children, suggesting a more developed understanding of the reality status of YouTube.

Effect of personal experiences with the medium on children’s understanding of the reality status of YouTube

In line with the idea that young children use their personal experiences to inform their reality status judgments (Woolley and Ghossainy, 2013) and as discussed above, empirical work by Li and colleagues (2019) has demonstrated evidence of activation in brain regions responsible for memory retrieval and working memory when children make judgments about reality status. = These findings suggest that perhaps when asked to make reality status judgements about YouTube, children with greater amounts of YouTube watching experience (and the many types of videos offered within) may rely on that prior experience in making their judgments and thus might provide more sophisticated justifications (i.e. relying on characteristics of the medium) when making judgments about the reality status of someone on YouTube.

The present study

This study derives from a larger project comparing children’s perceptions of the reality status of three different mediums (YouTube, TV, phone; Hassinger-Das et al., 2020) and examines children’s open-ended justifications for their reality status judgments about YouTube. Specifically, we examine how young children’s justifications for their judgements about the reality status of YouTube may be related to (1) age, and (2) experience with the medium. We ask the following research question: How are age and experience with the medium related to children’s justifications for reality status judgments of YouTube videos? We hypothesize that children will provide justifications relating to a more nuanced understanding of the reality status of YouTube—featuring information about the multifaceted nature of the medium—as a result of age and increased time spent watching the medium.

Notably, we examine this research question by showing children a still image that is purportedly from a YouTube video and asking them questions about it. We chose this approach because we expected that seeing a full video would prompt children to focus on elements of the video and distract them from focusing on the medium itself. We also did not want to present them with stimuli featuring a “correct” answer for the reality status question; instead, we wanted to capture the children’s perceptions of a relatively generic video. By showing a relatively simple still image, we aimed to encourage children to answer the questions about reality status by referring to their understanding of YouTube as a medium, to shed more light on conceptualizations of the platform.

Materials and methods

The present study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of XXXX and XXXX and conducted at two children’s museums in the Midwestern and Northeastern regions of the United States. After the child expressed a desire to participate in the study and caregivers completed informed consent paperwork, 117 children aged 3–8 were asked about their beliefs regarding the reality status of a purported smartphone video, television video, and YouTube video and provided justifications. The procedure was video recorded for later analysis. The current paper focuses only on the data for children’s justifications about the YouTube video. Forty-three children reported not watching YouTube and/or their caregivers did not provide any data about their home media use, so they were excluded from the analyses—leaving a final sample of 74 children (50% female, 74.3% white; Table 1). Caregivers

Table 1.

Sample demographics.

		% Of sample
Age group	3-4-year-olds	13.5
	5-6-year-olds	47.3
	7-8-year-olds	39.2
Gender	Male	50
Gender	Female	50
Caregiver	Mother	97.3
	Father	1.4
	Other relative	1.4
Mother’s education	High school	13.5
	Some college	16.2
	College graduate	43.2
	Graduate degree	25.7
	No answer	1.4
Child’s ethnic background	Asian/Pacific Islander	2.7
	African American	10.8
	Latinx	4.1
	White	74.3
	Other	1.4
	Multiracial	1.4
	No answer	5.4
Children’s language exposure	English	100
	English and Spanish	2.7
	English and other language (not Spanish)	2.7

(N = 74; 97.3% mothers, 68.9% college graduates) provided demographic information as well as information about children’s home media use.

Procedure

Caregiver survey

Caregivers completed a questionnaire asking about how much time children spend using various digital media platforms, including television and YouTube, the types of apps they use, and the videos/shows they watch. This paper presents caregivers’ reports of the time children spend watching YouTube as a proportion of their overall screen media use, which allows us to contextualize YouTube watching in terms of how much children spend watching screens in general.

Reality status judgements

The researchers created an 8 × 10 physical photo featuring a person that children would likely identify as male against a background composed of the sky, a tree, and a bird (to assess reality status judgements (see Figure 1). A person that children would likely identify as male was chosen, because males are more often featured in YouTube content than women (Wegener et al., 2020). A bird was selected for the image because videos featuring animals is one of the largest viewing categories for children under 8 years of age (Common Sense Media, 2017), and children living in all types of locations—from urban to rural—would likely have experienced seeing birds in their everyday lives. Children saw the same image labeled with an icon in the upper left corner designating it as one of three different medium types: YouTube, television, and a video taken on a researcher’s smartphone. The order in which the researcher showed the children the photos was counterbalanced. We opted for a within-subjects design to allow us to examine children’s assessments of the three mediums when they viewed all three together. Seeing all three may have allowed the children to articulate their beliefs about different media types more cogently than if they had only been exposed to one medium. Through pilot testing, we determined that using the same image for all three media types was the most effective method to allow children to focus on media type instead of details that differed between images used for each media type.

Figure 1.

Study stimuli (with television icon; figure also appears in Hassinger-Das et al., 2020).Image of trees and bird: Photographer Robin Moore/used under license from Shutterstock.comImage of person: Photographer Roman Samborskyi/used under license from Shutterstock.com.

To begin, the researcher laid out the photos and explained where they purportedly came from while denoting the icon in the upper left corner featuring an image of a smartphone, television, or the YouTube logo. Next, the researcher pointed to the first image on the table and asked whether the child thought the person in the image was real or not. The child was then asked how confident they were in their reality status judgment—not sure at all, a little bit sure, or very sure. A score was created from these two responses ranging from −3 (very sure that it is not real) to +3 (very sure that it is real). Lastly, the child was asked to describe why they thought the person in the image was real or not. This procedure was repeated for each of the three photos. In the current analyses, we focus on children’s reality status judgments and justifications for the YouTube video.

Response coding

Justifications

The authors created a coding scheme for the children’s justifications of their responses for reality status. These codes were created inductively after examining the child responses and in consultation with previous research (Hodge and Tripp, 1986; Morison et al., 1981). For purposes of these analyses, we focused on the code Medium-Objective (a fact/description of the medium—such as “YouTube is good to learn from because real people put videos on there”), because it represents that children are using their understanding and perceptions of the medium itself in making their judgments. Codes that were not considered related to the medium included comments about the physical nature of the person in the image, children’s feelings about the image, comments about the photo itself, et cetera. Thus, the variable we use in analyses is binary, representing whether or not children gave a medium-based justification for the judgment. The lead author trained a research assistant to complete all the coding. Thirty-two percent of the data were double coded for reliability by the lead author with 90% agreement achieved, and any discrepancies were resolved through discussion.

Results

Across the sample, children spent an average of 108 min per day on devices—with an average of 20.2% of that time spent watching YouTube. There was no significant effect of age on total device time, b = −0.016, t (73) = −0.139, p = 0.890, or the proportion of total device time spent watching YouTube, b = 0.136, t (73) = 1.166, p = 0.247.

To address our research question, a logistic regression model was conducted to examine the effect of age and proportion of total media time spent watching YouTube on children’s whether children justified their beliefs about the reality status of YouTube by referring to the medium. Linearity of the continuous variables with respect to the logit of the dependent variable was assessed using the Box-Tidwell (1962) test. A Bonferroni correction was then applied using all terms in the model, resulting in statistical significance being accepted at the p < 0.01 level (Tabachnick and Fidell, 2014). All continuous independent variables were related linearly to the logit of the dependent variable.

Time spent watching YouTube was a non-significant predictor and was not part of any significant interactions, ps > 0.151, so it was dropped from the analysis. Age emerged as a significant predictor, such that as children aged, they were more likely to give a Medium-Objective justification for justifying the reality status of YouTube. For each month increase in age, children were 1.03 times more likely to provide a Medium-Objective justification, x² (1) = 4.834, p = 0.028, [CI 1.002–1.060]. The final model explained 8.80% (Nagelkerke R²) of the variance in children’s justifications and correctly classified 68% of cases.

Discussion

YouTube and similar social media platforms have a unique set of characteristics that distinguish them from other media types commonly used by children, including the ability of anyone to become a creator and the presence of unique affinity spaces available for many different interests (Nicoll and Nansen, 2018). The goal of this study was to investigate how age and experience with YouTube as a medium affect their justifications for their beliefs about the reality status of someone purportedly from a YouTube video. Our findings suggest that increased age relates to justifications that focus on the medium, whereas experience with the medium had no significant effect.

In the United States, children’s time spent watching online videos has tripled over the past 3 years (Rideout and Robb, 2020). In fact, children are now watching more online videos than live television or videos hosted by streaming services (Rideout and Robb, 2020). In our sample, 3-and-4-year-olds spent 94 min per day on screens and 5-6-year-olds watched screens for 119 min per day. The oldest children (7-8-year-olds) spent 100 min per day on screens. Children’s time watching YouTube increased with age (although these differences were non-significant): 3-4-year-olds spent 14.9% of their total screen media time watching YouTube, 5-6-year-olds 20.3% on YouTube, and 7-8-year-olds spent 21.8% of that time devoted to watching YouTube.

Effects of age and experience with the medium on children’s understanding of the reality status of YouTube

This study focused on the justifications that denoted children’s nuanced understanding of the reality status of the medium. Based on a theoretical foundation which assumes that children use their past experiences—such as interactions with various digital media platforms—to differentially inform their reality status beliefs about new entities based on age-related, cognitive developmental level (Woolley and Ghossainy, 2013), we hypothesized that children would develop a more nuanced understanding of YouTube as a medium as they age, which would be demonstrated through the use of justifications focused on the medium. This hypothesis was supported by the data. Older children were more likely to justify their responses by referring to the medium itself, denoting a more sophisticated understanding of YouTube.

Younger children gave less sophisticated justifications for those judgments, citing, for example, physical aspects of the image or the device on which the video would be viewed rather than information about the medium itself. This may suggest that older children have a more nuanced understanding of YouTube as a medium and/or that they are more likely to use their knowledge of the medium to inform their reality status judgements. For example, one 7-year-old stated that, “YouTube is always fake. BeckBroJack said if I liked the video, I’d get a cookie, and I never did.” Conversely, an 8-year-old claimed that the person on YouTube was real by saying, “YouTubers are actually in real life. They report on things that really happen.” Finally, another 7-year-old who indicated that the person on YouTube was not real justified their decision by saying, “Sometimes people on YouTube are real, and sometimes they are not.” This idea is in line with previous research about the presence of developmental change in children’s justifications about the characteristics of television (Chandler, 1997; Hodge and Tripp, 1986) and with the idea that cognitive development involves a decreasing reliance on one’s own experience and an increased consideration of other sources of information (Woolley and Ghossainy, 2013): older children are better able to use their knowledge of the medium to support their judgements.

However, the other hypothesis—that time spent watching YouTube as a proportion of total media time would predict children’s understanding of the reality status of YouTube—was not supported. Watching greater amounts of YouTube did not appear to help children understand it in a more mature way. In one sense, this finding runs counter to the theoretical framing of Woolley and Ghossainy (2013) and the findings of Li and colleagues (2019) regarding the role experience plays in shaping children’s reality status judgements.

This may also be affected by the amount of diversity in the type of videos that children regularly engage with on YouTube, including gaming tutorials, cartoons, music videos, clips of television shows, animal videos, unboxing videos, how-to videos, and influencer videos. This diversity might indicate to children that YouTube is an unreliable source of information—sometimes real but other times not. Thus, even children who have greater experience with YouTube may not use the medium to justify their judgements because it is inconsistent as a source (Harris et al., 2017).

Limitations

One limitation of the present study was the relatively small sample size, although the sample did provide enough power to conduct the analyses (Agresti, 2007). The reduction in the original sample size was due to many caregivers not completing the demographic and screen use survey information. We recommend exercising caution in interpreting these findings and will aim to replicate these findings in future research. Another important limitation was the lack of racial/ethnic diversity in the sample (74.3% white children). Although we did have socioeconomic diversity present in our sample, future research must strive for a more representative sample.

It is also a limitation of these data that we were not able to control for children’s verbal ability. Although we interpret our findings as reflecting children’s sophisticated understanding of YouTube as a medium, the tendency to provide a justification relating to the medium itself may also be related to children’s verbal ability, which increases with age (Hunt, 1978). Future research should include a measure of verbal ability to control for this possibility.

Another limitation is that children viewed still photos instead of actual videos. We elected to do this to focus children’s attention on the medium itself instead of on other aspects of video, but it is worth noting that this decision might have affected how children responded to the media types. We also acknowledge that selecting a person that children would likely identify as male as the person in the images is a potential limitation, because it might have influenced children’s perceptions of the image. However, we made the decision to use this image, because children are more likely to have watched YouTube videos featuring male persons since males are more prevalent on the platform (Wegener et al., 2020).

Conclusion

While YouTube continues to grow in popularity—both at home and in the classroom— minimal information is known about how children understand and experience it as a medium. This study suggests that increased age relates to a more nuanced understanding of the reality status of YouTube, while experience with the medium did not. Future work should examine how children’s trust in YouTube as a reliable source of information affects their interactions with and preference for specific video content. This work begins to build a foundation of knowledge on which educators and caregivers will be able to base informed decisions about children’s YouTube consumption. It can also inform the development of future media literacy curricula to help support children’s understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of YouTube as a medium.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are given to all the children and caregivers who made this study possible, and to the research assistants who assisted with data collection.

Author’s note

This study was conducted as part of a larger investigation of children’s understanding of reality status judgements about digital media.

Data availability

Research data are accessible here:

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Brenna Hassinger-Das

Author Biographies

Brenna Hassinger-Das, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Pace University. She completed her PhD in Education at the University of Delaware in 2013. As director of the Science of Development Lab, her research examines children's digital media use, play, and learning in home, school, and community contexts, particularly for children experiencing poverty.

Rebecca Dore is the Director of Research at the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy at The Ohio State University. Her primary research interests are focused on children's engagement with and learning from play, storybooks, and didgital media. As a developmental psychologist, she is also broadly interested in early cognitive development, including home and classroom characteristics that influence developmental trajectories and learning, particularly in the domain of language and literacy.

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