Digital Habits
How Autoplay Keeps Them Watching
Autoplay is one little switch that does a lot, because it takes away the moment at the end of a video when you'd normally decide whether to keep watching.
Stopping used to be the default
A video used to end, and if you did nothing, that was it. If you wanted more, you tapped. Autoplay flips that around. Now doing nothing starts the next one, so your kid has to stop something to get out.
Why the next one is always stronger
Whatever plays next is picked to hold their attention, even if it has nothing to do with the last one, so a string of videos keeps drifting toward whatever's more extreme. That's how a kid who looked up something totally normal ends up somewhere weird fifteen minutes later without searching for any of it.
Where the toggle actually lives
Netflix has autoplay on to start with, and so does YouTube on an adult account (it's off by default for teens, but they can turn it back on), and TikTok and Instagram have an auto scroll switch worth checking. You have to turn each one off separately, app by app, and usually profile by profile. It takes about ten minutes, and it really makes a difference.
The Sunday Script
Get one script every Sunday
The words for one hard conversation, in your inbox every Sunday, and a short note once a month. You can stop anytime.
That email doesn’t look right.