Addictive Programming
Mon 5:29 am +00:00, 26 Jan 2026 3A few days ago, while talking to a circle of friends about child-rearing, one mother compared an infant’s tendency to throw tantrums when sugary foods were withdrawn to what many parents were facing with modern children’s video programs and that she’d learned in the groups she belonged to that numerous parents were now switching to showing their children the shows they’d grown up watching as those shows did not have the same destabilizing effects on their children.
As we discussed this topic (e.g., many of us have banned screens after noticing how negatively they impact developing nervous systems), I realized this needed to be publicly discussed due to:
•How unfair and tragic it is that due to the modern toxicity they are bombarded with, so many children no longer have health and spark within them that bring joy to everyone around them.
•All the problems we discussed with children directly tie into the central issues I feel are facing much broader segments of society (e.g., the dopamine trap society uses to control us and make us feel dead inside).
Note: It continually astounds me (and those I point it out to) how different naturally raised children are, and how much rarer they are becoming, given the many fronts on which the predatory forces around us are attacking our health. For those interested, some of the most important strategies I’ve come across for raising healthy children are discussed here.
Addictive Programming
Large swathes of parents describe modern children’s content (particularly YouTube videos like CoComelon) as highly engaging to the point of addiction, with intense emotional reactions when removed:
•A 2025 Talker Research survey of 2,000 U.S. parents found 22% report “full-on tantrums” as a side effect of excessive screen time, alongside irritability (27%) and mood swings (24%).1
Note: This survey has other disturbing statistics (e.g., 67% of parents fear losing precious time with their children due to screen addiction).
•The 2025 Common Sense Media Census states that 25% of parents use screen media to help their child calm down when upset, with 17% reporting their child uses mobile devices to self-soothe.2
•On Reddit parenting forums, searches for “CoComelon tantrum” yield thousands of threads describing similar patterns: calm during viewing, explosive tantrums upon shutdown — far worse than with slower shows like older Sesame Street.
•The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) acknowledges in clinical guidelines that high-engagement digital media can lead to tantrums when interrupted due to behavioral reinforcement designed for maximum engagement.3
Online reports from parents surged after 2015 as YouTube kids content shifted to being optimized for toddlers viewing without parents. Research suggests this creates ADHD-like symptoms:
•Modern shows’ rapid cuts (1 to 4 seconds) overstimulate developing brains, making it hard to sustain focus on slower tasks (the “overstimulation hypothesis”).4
•A 2011 study exposed 4-year-olds to 9 minutes of fast-paced SpongeBob (11-second cuts) vs. slower Caillou or drawing; the fast-paced group showed immediate deficits in executive function lasting up to 4 hours.5
Note: The AAP recommends parents avoid fast-paced programs for kids under 5.
•A 2004 study found over 2 hours of TV daily before age 3 was linked to attention problems by age 7.6
•A 2018 review found early fast-paced exposure correlated with later attentional deficits, as it “rewires” brains toward novelty-seeking.7 In mice, excessive sensory stimulation decreased learning and memory while increasing risk-taking.8
•A 2023 study linked higher toddler screen time to increased anger/frustration later, with each extra hour raising risk by 13%.9
Many parents specifically cited CoComelon as particularly problematic, attributing it to rapidly changing frames every few seconds. I watched several episodes to verify this, noting how disorienting shots changing every 1 to 4 seconds felt.
Note: Many believe shorter segments before screen cuts have been immensely destructive to the American psyche, taking away people’s ability to maintain the attention spans necessary to perceive deeper meaning in life.
Why YouTube kids channels do this:
•This maximizes “watch time” (how they profit). Very young children have short attention spans — rapid cuts act like a visual “ping” yanking attention back, increasing view duration.
•Every sudden cut triggers the brain’s “orienting response.”10 In toddlers, this reflex is especially strong. CoComelon exploits it hundreds of times per episode, creating a near-constant dopamine loop.
•It’s designed for “auto-play.” Fast pacing keeps kids watching during the critical 3-6 second window before the next video starts, chaining them for hours.
•These channels use analytics to optimize pacing, colors, and sound effects, finding that cuts every ~2 to 3 seconds keeps toddlers glued more effectively.
•Classic shows (Mister Rogers, old Sesame Street, Blue’s Clues) were deliberately calm with long takes, designed for developmental appropriateness. Modern YouTube content is intended to be watched alone by toddlers, so “grab and hold attention at all costs” wins.
Note: Classic children’s shows like Mister Rogers would leave pauses so children could process their feelings — the polar opposite of these channels.
Key Implications
1.Evidence has emerged that screens have been designed to be as addictive as possible through dopamine-triggering stimuli. Many social media executives express regret about what their products have done to children’s brains. Many tech executives even send their kids to schools where screens are banned.11
Note: I believe this partly because marketers constantly concoct ways to hook people, a process accelerated by internet-enabled rapid testing and distribution of addictive content.
2.After the DPT vaccine entered the population, neurological and behavioral issues rippled through society. In the 1950s, “minimal brain damage” [MBD] was coined, with hyperactivity as its defining characteristic. MBD symptoms overlap significantly with encephalitis, DPT injuries, and autism. Eventually, they found it could be “treated” with stimulants, and the disorder was renamed ADHD.
Note: Physicians like Gabor Maté have reported that many homeless, addicted patients showed undiagnosed ADHD, and when it is properly treated as part of trauma-informed care approach, it stabilized them and often greatly improved the trajectory of their lives.12
3.I suspect something similar is happening with screens — their dopamine-releasing nature is being used to counteract behavioral disturbances in vaccine-injured children. Many parents lacking bandwidth to handle misbehaving children are forced to provide addictive technology, transforming children into lifelong users.
4.I’ve long believed slavery ended partly because economic servitude became more profitable, with labor outsourced to poorer nations where cruelty could exist out of sight. Since the desire to exploit people never disappeared, other methods emerged — like turning people into lifelong pharmaceutical customers (a process often set in motion by chronic illnesses triggered by vaccination). The same is happening with harvesting attention online and collecting data.
Consider: something parents trust their children to watch was designed to hijack their children regardless of harm to developing nervous systems — and rather than be penalized, it’s amassed billions of lucrative views because algorithms incentivize this quickly produced content.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/12/26/dopamine-trap-screen-addiction.aspx
Is it so difficult to read a book with your child, to take him for a walk, to encourage him to talk about what he sees so that he develops his language skills?
My parents parented me and I was encouraged to take an interest in lots of things. Weekends were devoted to doing things as a family, too but that level of involvement in a child’s upbringing seems to have largely disappeared.
There are no rules. Boys seem to be more addicted than girls in my experience. Some keep it all in proportion. Others are just lost. It is wonderful when a child makes a real world connection and gets enthusiastic about a sport or an activity, for example. The loss of communication skills is the worst thing but they can come back. State school boys have it worst as they go home at 3pm. Private schools now are consciously separating children from their gadgets. We have a foot in both camps, and we see the effects described.
The parental key is balance as always, minimise the screen time by real world activity
Personal communication skills are certainly being lost. When I’m out with my dogs then I always say “hello” to anyone that I meet. Often with teens and twenty somethings, even thirty and fourty somethings then, I see their lips move in reply, but nothing comes out of their mouth! It’s bizarre, they can’t seem to speak to a stranger, even a totally none threatening old giffer like me, ha ha