YouTube Co-Founder and Former Tech Boss Says He Doesn’t Want His Kids Consuming Short Videos, Warning Short-Form Content ‘Equates to Shorter Attention Spans’

• cofounder Steve Chen is among the newest tech pioneers to raise concerns about social media’s effects on children. In a talk, Chen cautioned that short-form videos “lead to shorter attention spans” and noted he doesn’t want his own kids to only engage with this kind of content. Businesses that distribute short-form videos (including his co-founded company YouTube) should implement protections for younger users, he added.

A YouTube cofounder who played a key role in shaping our modern, content-focused world is the latest tech expert to voice opposition to short-form videos due to their impact on children.

Steve Chen, who was YouTube’s former chief technology officer prior to its acquisition in 2006, criticized the TikTok-ification of online existence during a speech earlier this year at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“I think TikTok is entertainment, but it’s purely entertainment,” Chen stated during the talk, which was on YouTube Friday. “It’s just for that moment. Just shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans.”

Chen, who shares two children with his wife Jamie Chen, mentioned he doesn’t want his kids to only consume short-form content and then struggle to watch anything longer than 15 minutes. He noted that some other parents make their kids watch longer videos without the bright colors and tricks that appeal so much to younger viewers—and this approach is effective, he says.

“If they don’t get exposure to the short-form content right away, then they’re still happy with that other type of content that they’re watching,” he said.

He added that many companies hurried to launch short-form content following TikTok’s surge in popularity, but now they need to balance their goals of monetization and capturing users’ attention with content that’s “truly useful.”

Businesses that distribute short-form videos—including his former company YouTube—might encounter issues with addiction. He suggested these companies should put in place safeguards for kids regarding short-form content, like age limits for apps and time restrictions for certain users.

Chen joins fellow tech pioneers Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk in warning about social media’s impact on children. In a podcast , Altman specifically highlighted social media scrolling and the “dopamine hit” of short-form videos as “probably messing with kids’ brain development in a super deep way.”

Musk, owner of the social network X (formerly Twitter), stated in 2023 that he doesn’t restrict his children’s social media use, but added this ” and urged parents to be more involved in their kids’ social media habits.

“I think, probably, I would limit social media a bit more than I have in the past and just take note of what they’re watching, because I think at this point they’re being programmed by some social media algorithms, which you may or may not agree with,” Musk said.

A version of this story originally published on on July 29, 2025.