When Algorithms Raise Our Children, Values Must Raise Their Voices | Ep. 346

When Algorithms Raise Our Children, Values Must Raise Their Voices | Episode 346

Warning: the volume on kids’ videos isn’t just loud—it’s strategic. We open up about the new reality of children’s content where unboxings, timed challenges, and staged “secret rooms” blur the line between storytelling and advertising. If your kid thinks every store trip should end with twenty blind bags, you’re not alone. We talk candidly about product placement, the attention economy, and why constant hype can train young brains to crave peaks, not presence.

From our vantage point as parents and creators, we draw a clear line: free speech is vital, but safety and public health matter more. We share how we handle toxic comments, why threats aren’t protected, and how careful language choices set the tone for kids who hear way more than we realize. You’ll hear practical ways to decode what’s on-screen—naming incentives, calling out “cast” families, and highlighting the difference between reality and “reality TV.” We contrast today’s shout‑speak with the calmer shows many of us grew up with, and we explain how over-the-top content can create entitlement, stress at checkout lines, and friction with peers.

Most importantly, we offer tools you can use tonight. Curate channels that align with your values, co‑watch when possible, and set simple time windows that prevent endless scrolls. When a video turns into a yell-fest, pause, label the tactic, and switch to something gentler. We also make the case for off-screen rituals—role‑playing games, simple quests, cooking, and backyard adventures—that deliver surprise and agency without algorithms. Love isn’t measured in prizes; it’s felt in attention, patience, and small joys that don’t need sponsors. If this resonates, share the episode with a friend, subscribe for future conversations, and leave a review with one screen tip that works for your family.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Gratitude And Global Community

2:38 Free Speech Versus Safety Online

8:53 Choose Words Carefully, Skip Hurtful Comments

12:48 Finding Episodes And How To Listen

12:48 Introducing The Main Topic

14:10 The YouTube Kids Phenomenon

18:12 Product Placement And Hidden Ads

24:20 Then Vs Now: Quieter Shows We Grew Up With

28:38 The Cost Illusion And Entitlement

33:28 Parenting Without A Handbook

34:28 Off‑Screen Alternatives And RPG Idea

#AlgorithmsInEducation #ChildDevelopment #TechAndParenting #ValuesInAI #RaisingVoices #DigitalParenting #EthicsInTechnology #FutureOfEducation #AIAndKids #EmpoweringChildren #ParentalGuidance #TechForGood #InclusiveLearning #SocialImpactTech #VoicesOfTheFuture #justiceforsurvivors #justice4survivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #Jesusaire #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices346

Chapters

• 0:00 Gratitude And Global Community
• 2:38 Free Speech Versus Safety Online
• 8:53 Choose Words Carefully, Skip Hurtful Comments
• 12:48 Finding Episodes And How To Listen
• 12:48 Introducing The Main Topic
• 14:10 The YouTube Kids Phenomenon
• 18:12 Product Placement And Hidden Ads
• 24:20 Then Vs Now: Quieter Shows We Grew Up With
• 28:38 The Cost Illusion And Entitlement
• 33:28 Parenting Without A Handbook
• 34:28 Off‑Screen Alternatives And RPG Idea

Transcript

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 0:01

Hey everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. If you can smash that subscribe button, you know, follow, like, share, thumbs up, we would greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode, as well as the over 340 episodes on our way to 400. We're gonna hit 400. I don't know when it's gonna be, uh, but we were only supposed to hit 300 by the end of calendar year 2025. Uh, thank you for coming and spending a moment with us, whether you're watching, listening, whether you're here in the United States or across the world, uh, we are 90 countries strong, close to 900 cities strong. It's incredible. Thank you for being part of us, part of our movement to help others, to be a voice for ourselves, to be a voice for others, and just help our fellow human beings uh through uh difficult times, easy times, rocky times. That's why we're here. That's why I'm here. I have no doubt. That's why uh you know God has spared me uh over the years of not great decision making that I've that I've made. Uh that why am I why am I still here? What do I have to do? Well, apparently there's a lot of work that God wants me to do or has wanted me to do up until now. And I hope it's for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time still to go. It is uh just a joy to have the ability to breathe, talk to you as you're watching, as you're listening, no matter how you do it. We are just very grateful and humbled uh for you to be with us. So things are uh things are rampant up. We're excited. Uh sometimes it might not look like it. That's one of the things with uh when these connotations with somebody who has mental illness or mental illnesses that we may say, oh, we feel good, or we feel excited, and somebody might say, and I had an employer that said this, well, you don't look excited, you don't look happy, and I just want to set the record straight on that. That if somebody says, Oh, I'm excited, they may show a lot of emotions, they may not they say they're happy, they may show a lot of emotions or they might not. It's really uh not up to those people they're gonna judge, but it's not up to them how we feel, how we truly feel, not what's on the outside, not the shiny object syndrome where oh, there's a shiny object here, oh, there's a shiny object here, oh, there's a shiny object there. Uh, we're talking about true human beings, and being that I am a human being just like you are as well. Uh, maybe we have some uh Elon Musk robots that are watching and listening. Welcome to you as well. Thanks, Elon, uh, for everything you do. Uh we are uh ecstatic with the work that you're you're putting in. And I'd like to give a big call out to uh people across the United States and across the world who have seen our show, has watched, has listened, and they are making a difference. Not just not just me, not just voices for voices, but making a real difference. When we talk about you know the First Amendment for United States citizen, the right to free speech, that's what it is. We have the right for free speech, no matter how you like it, how you don't like it. I didn't write the constitution, did you? Did you are you a founding father? You did you write the constitution? No, you didn't. Neither did I. I'm not claiming to have written the constitution. However, I do know how to read, and I can read that the first amendment is the right to free speech. So I keep bringing this up because we keep getting comments. We keep getting people that want to say, you know, F you, F you, F your guest. That's as an American citizen, you're fully entitled to your opinion, and I'm okay with that. But when we start talking about danger and dangerous things, and talking about, you know, death threats and those types of things, that's when you know the First Amendment gets overridden by safety, public safety, public health. And so we just have to make sure everybody I don't want anybody to be hurt, I don't want anybody to be taken advantage of. If you sent a hurtful comment on any of our shows, any of our videos, and on any of our platforms, most notably our TikTok seems to be the hot button, the hot one uh where people or you know, the keyboard warriors feel like they can write, type anything they want, and then okay, well, just know that I have the right to free speech, and I have the right to be able to have this show, have this distributed, broadcasted across the world, and that part's humbling to know that little old me is able to look into the camera and know that on the other side are people from all across the world, all across the the globe. Those that speak English, those speak different languages than um English. It's really just incredible, and I take a lot of time to recognize this because it's an important place to be, and so it's very important that we try to choose our words as carefully as possible because of that. And so we just ask for the same thing for for you. I recently was told that uh we all have insecurities. For some it's one thing, for others it's another. We all have things that we're insecure about. But when we say, hey, if you're watching, we love you. We love that you're watching, we love that you're listening, or that you have watched or you have listened. And call it insecurity, call it whatever. Call it what you will, call it what you want, I just know if I don't agree with something I'm watching or listening to, that I find something else to do. I just find something else to do. So instead of putting a hurtful comment or a dangerous comment on our shows, on our platforms, maybe just think about trying something different. Put a different show on. So whether this sounds like I'm insecure or not, I think it shows confidence because myself and voices for voices, we're here to help people, we're not here to hurt people, and there may be episodes that they just don't tickle your fancy, uh, but then maybe another episode does, and so you watch that or listen to that, or you go through our our whole catalog over 340 episodes strong, and you find an episode here and there, and uh yeah, and you watch and listen to those. But that's why I love the voicesforvoices.org forward slash podcast, because that takes you directly to uh our podcast, our shows, uh the audio versions, and it has the top the topmost episode is the most recent episode. And so you're able to if you haven't tuned in for a couple weeks or a month or six months, and somehow Voices for Voices comes up in a conversation, you go, Oh, let me see if there's there's something that I would be interested in watching or listening. And so you do that, so you scroll through, and you can know that the the the latest and greatest is gonna be what's on the top, so you're not gonna have to scroll all the way down if you want to go all the way to the beginning. You have to scroll all the way down, but at the very top, you're gonna find the latest and greatest uh uh episodes there. Okay. Now let's get started. Now it's time for what we want this particular episode to highlight. Call them the YouTube the YouTube generation or the YouTube kids. And who are these? These are kids, individuals who because we have more options to watch content, listen to content, you're able to find the Voices for Voices, TV, show, and podcast everywhere. But then there's also other shows specific to kids, children, and call it, you know, the the YouTube or the Netflix or uh kid generation generations, and these are children, kids that are growing up watching shows on YouTube or listening to shows. More more of it is uh watching shows. I'm just readjusting my position here so to get a little bit more comfortable, and the ones that seem to be popular, right, are the princess, the prince episodes, you know, these families that have all this money, they're buying a hundred of one type of a product or several products, and and and literally the only thing that the camera person is filming is the family child, usually uh opening up each one. Oh, there's a blind bag. So we have 25 blind bags. We're not sure what we're gonna get, what character we're gonna get. Um, so here, pick a number out of a half, one to 20. Oh, two. So I'm gonna go over to number two and I'm gonna open it up. Oh, I got this character, I got this friend. Um, and then they go around and they do that to all 20 or however many uh characters or how however many uh products they they have. And it's a business thing, right? It's called product placement, it's called advertising. And what I try to explain and share, and and we'll try to do here as succinctly as I can is this is how products get advertised called product placement. So before you know YouTube and all these online platforms, uh we would be watching when I was growing up, you know, Sesame Street or uh Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and the like. And again, not trying to rank and say one show is better than the other. But there was very little product placement, it was very little putting things in her face, there's very little loud talking, and just being like, we're here at the house and we have a secret room, and is she gonna be able to find it? She's coming home in two minutes, guys, girls. We need to get this fixed, finished up. Is she gonna be able to find us? She's got five minutes, and if she doesn't find us in five minutes, then she's not gonna get the latest iPhone or whatever. And so you realize I was you know hyped up for that a little bit. But these are the shows that are YouTube children, YouTube generation, it's not just YouTube, uh, it's one of the main platforms, though, that uh again, it's a free speech. Are they allowed to do it? Absolutely. But as parents, and I'm having a hard time doing it, uh, because right, if our if our if our children are are going to school, uh they're probably being influenced by other children at the school. And we we know that sometimes that's how they learn about certain things that we wish that we'd be able to teach them and talk about as parents and as families, uh not somebody at school using a word that they heard their parent or loved one or heard on a show or a movie. Uh but then again, you know, becoming a parent, there's no handbook to that. But the YouTube kids, YouTube generation, I'm just using that because one of our platforms is YouTube. So uh maybe more people will check us out on YouTube, Voices for Voices. And so I I hearken back to you know these shows where everything's so extreme. Where oh, are they gonna be able to find this secret room that we had a wall in our house just knocked out and built this secret room and with all these products and uh sometimes different types of candies or what have you? And and it's like a huge challenge that you know is is our daughter, is our is our uh is our boy going to be able to find it and they have you know five minutes or ten minutes or a half hour, and if they win this challenge and they find it, then they may win some prize. And so if it is an iPhone, well, guess who just had free advertising an Apple iPhone? That's product placement, it's a product that's placed in a program. It doesn't have to come out and say, oh, get the iPhone 17 because it has bump up all these all these accessories or all these uh different features in it. So instead of that, it's oh so and so is gonna you know when wins this, and so that gets you know children and some adults to go, oh maybe I need to look into that. Same thing with these you know blind boxes where um and this is uh I I understand that some of us are uh our eyesight is is not quite as available as others, and so I don't mean this as derogatory at all. I just mean that there's sometimes boxes or bags that a person opens up and they don't know what's inside of it, and when those bags or those boxes are opened up reveals a new character, new toy, a new friend, that that's product placement too, because it's like oh I got blankety blank blank. Uh, because I I don't know all the all the all the different items. I know there's uh a ton out there, and I don't want to give free advertising other than what I've already given. Uh so I apologize for that. I'm not uh not here to advertise. Uh we don't have a lot of sponsors. So if you like to sponsor the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast and get your products in front of a global audience, you know where to find us. Check us out, reach out to us, we'll make it happen. And so, what I'm getting at with this YouTube kid, YouTube generation, YouTube kids is the shows are are much different than when I was growing up, and I'm not one of these individuals that says, When I was growing up, I had to walk up uh you know uphill both ways to and from school. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about just the programming that that's available and on we don't just have cable, we don't just have you know the bunny ears and getting you know the three, five, and eight channels. There's so many channels, uh, and so many ways to watch. So, right, you know, there are just so many different different ways. So cable is not the only way to to watch or to uh view or listen to to content uh as uh we were rather limited when I was growing up, and that was fine. That was the times I was living up, not living up in times that I was uh growing up in, not the jaw rule song, the living it up. Uh I don't think apparently apparently that was in my head for some reason, but uh but it's interesting because we want to have our kids positioned as best as possible and learning and having fun, and while it looks like these shows that these kids, these children, people can as a child they can relate to and go, oh, they they like gymnastics, so I like gymnastics, and uh sometimes it's good, maybe that gets a child uh to try something new in a good way. Uh I though for one find that number one, the loud sounds and and and the loud voices that gets to me. That's part of like my low low spectrum autism, where stuff just it gets to me with sounds and lights specifically, and so that bothers me just in general, regardless of if my child is watching or listening to one of these types of shows. Um then secondly, I don't want my child or your child or any children to go through life thinking that every time they go to the store that not only that they're gonna buy get buy something or have something bought for them, but the oh, I was watching this show and they got all 20 of these, or they bought 20, so why can't we buy 20? And so it brings up these conversations that it's like, well, are my parents holding back? They don't they don't think that I'm worthy, also worthy, don't they think that I'm that I should get get that get them for some some reason? Uh and and as a parent, we know, or any of any human being with that's able to reason, money doesn't grow on trees. No matter how much you have, like you're always gonna want more, and we we want to do the best we can, provide the best we can for our children. Uh, that goes without saying. So when we see shows or videos that are being shown where a video is of a parent and a child at a store and they're picking up one of everything, again, that's called product placement. It's called if it looks like they're paying for all those, they're not. It's called product placement, and so that organization, so if it's a certain type of a store, then that store on top of whatever uh 50 things we just purchased from uh you know their characters. So uh these are these are things our children are are are gonna be expecting. And it's already hard enough to be a parent. Just just it's just hard. Doesn't come with a having a child doesn't come with a handbook. Yeah, there's a lot of books, there's a lot of things out there, but we're we do the best that we can. And I've just noticed that these these YouTube videos and others when there's friends of my child's that that uh when when they get together, try to get them off devices, which is one of the ways you can do that is with an RPG, not a rocket propelled grenade, but a role-playing game. So that is something that takes place off of a screen, and you can be on the lookout for uh a role-playing game from Voices for Voices uh that will be coming out, and it is uh of great uh happiness that we're able to be able to to do this uh because it allows us to bring families together away from the screens, even if that means away from the voices for voices, TV show and podcast for for an evening or or so. Um and so yeah, be on the lookout for that and just be on the on the lookout for her our children when we have you know their friends over or that you know let's just help them be as safe as possible uh because we want everybody to be safe, not just our own child or our own children, and so while it's okay for the children to watch these you know shows, we can't have them watching them all the time because then right, what happens? We watch something, it gets into our mind, it gets into our brain, and then if we hear it or see it enough, we get conditioned into thinking that's the way it is, that's the way life is, that's the way it should be. When we go to the store, I gotta get all 20 of these or all 10 of those. So that's why I wanted to to to bring it up. Not to mention uh some of the language that's being used. Uh for me. I hear oh my god so many times on a certain couple of shows, and while it's not illegal to say that, as a Catholic, we don't say, Oh my god, we say, Oh my gosh, and so when I mention to my child, we say, Oh my gosh, we don't say that, we don't say oh my god, we say, oh my gosh, and I try to point out in the shows when regular families they're using this language, and and so for my child to say, Oh, I know that's I'm not supposed to say that, but again, if it gets conditioned more and more and more, and then she and then and then goes to school, and then friends are saying it, then she starts maybe getting into that habit, and then it's too late, it's already past that point, and so that's an area that I I think that platforms can do better on is it respect that, and it's not just that they these shows say them one time, it's almost every other sentence it comes out, and I don't know about you, I don't know how how your your life, but I don't know how many of you, every other thing we think about is like oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, trust me, not everything is so dramatic or so wowing. I guess maybe if was on one of uh SpaceX's uh vehicles and going going into outer space and and that, I might say, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, with the views of the world and the globe and the atmosphere and the uh sunrises and the sunsets and and and all those, but that's like a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, fraction of one one of 0.1%. So that's what I'm talking about, is we become so laxadaisical. But as a parent, we need to do better, I need to do better, and the first thing we can do is hopefully try to set a good example on ourselves, and then if we're giving our children the privilege to watch something or listen to something show wise, that we correct, we ask to watch something different, and that we don't compromise their children or the parent, and just like me, and probably just like you, when you hear these car dealership commercials, they talk so loud like they're screaming. That's what I think of with most of these shows. That these these individuals are like screaming into the camera, like, oh my gosh, I don't know what she's gonna do. Oh, I didn't know that that was gonna happen. Come on, people. Jeez, do we need to do that? Well, we gotta get their we gotta get keep their attention. I don't want people screaming at me through through a TV, through a monitor, through a phone, not through a screen. I don't need that, and you don't need that either. Not everybody has a house, so they're gonna knock out a wall and build some secret room. So guess what? Did you think that maybe the house isn't really that families? Hmm. If they're just gonna be ripping it apart and building a secret room over here, then they're gonna build a pool over here, and part of it's gonna be uh uh indoors and outdoors, and and all these different different things. Not to mention, and this is a proven fact, that the people in these videos aren't always the family members that they look to portray, meaning the person that's portrayed to be the father and the mother, and the son and the daughter, that none of them are related at all. And so that's called casting. When you put a TV show, a film together, you cast, you bring people together and see who works good, and and and then you go from there, and and so it's just reality TV, where we call it reality TV, but we know that it's not all reality because there's certain storylines that have to be followed because it's entertainment. If it's a show on TV, there needs to be advertisers, and advertisers only gonna pay for things that are predictable that they know that are going to happen and put their products potentially in into into those shows. So I know we covered a ton on on this particular episode, but let's watch our kids, let's be there, be their parent. If there's any language that we don't deem appropriate, turn it off, turn something else on. And three, if you don't like our episode, this isn't me being insecure, it's me being confident and happy of what we've accomplished up until now and going forward, then please please put on another show. Please do that, it'll save you some stress from having to write a negative comment, or worse, because if only one person was watching and listening, and that person was able to be helped, that means more to me than having our show 90 countries going on 900 cities across the globe. So thank you for everyone who's been with us. One second or the whole 340 plus episodes. Thank you so much. Please be a voice for you or somebody in need. Celebrate our voices. Hopefully, I've inspired on some level. Try it. So God bless you. God bless the United States of America. God bless you near and far in the United States or across the globe. We'll see you next time.