YouTube question

[CocoCocoMademoiselle]

Hope someone can help me.

Earlier in the year, I discovered my son was looking at some odd material on YouTube. I won't say what exactly, as it might be too outing for us. He is 14 years old. I know, they grow up so fast. I think I'm a good mother, not overbearing, but there were some odd jokes I overheard between him and his friends when they stayed over a while back, all the same age, from his class at school. He has a Smartphone and I allow use until a certain time of night and I do keep an eye on what he's consuming.

So after the odd jokes and comments, about quite aggressive behaviours towards girls and women, I checked his phone and his Google History was worrying. Also his YouTube history. I had a very gentle motherly conversation with him and he said he was ashamed and it was mainly due to his friends "messing about". I noticed the times he was often looking were when he was alone though.

We discussed misogyny, I thought I had brought him up to respect women, and outwardly he is a very kind and sensitive, well spoken young man. What is going on in his head is more worrying, but of course I am aware that our youngsters are surrounded by this stuff and even if we block it for them, their friends can sometimes have ways around it.

This was back in March/April time. I decided to track his phone and I hadn't seen anything else since then. Until yesterday. I put our TV on and decided to watch some YouTube. I would normally watch on my IPad or computer to wind down, don't use the TV for social media at all usually. I started typing into the search bar at the top of the YouTube screen, something totally unrelated, and up popped searches for the violent material with a clock next to them, which I know means they are someone's searches, not suggestions.

When I checked the Youtube history on the TV, there was nothing saved there and it was not logged in to any account. But there were at least 10 to 15 searches popping up with the clock next to them. He denies it and says the searches "just appeared". I challenged that, he said they were from before March/April time.

My issue is there are no dates or times in the search bar. Can someone please advise? I've tried to test it on my phone and it looks as if the search bar only saves the last few months of searches, signed in or not. The History is different of course. I need to figure out whether my son is lying or not.

Nobody else uses this TV in the living room. And noone else would be looking for this material anyway. Help! Is he lying to me?

I know a lot about tech, and I can tell you that some searches are suggestions, and some are previous searches. If the icon is a magnifying glass, the search might not have been made before. If an icon with an arrow in a circle shows up, the search has been made before.

Either way, it's important you supervise use of social media, as bad content can come up quickly. Teach your child to press the three dots then "don't recommend this channel" on bad videos.

Feel free to ask for any more help needed ❤️

Thanks for that, yes, I know the magnifying glass means suggestions and the clock means previous searches. My question is the date of those searches. I'm sure that no searches whatsoever were coming up in late April time, I don't use it that often though, but that would tally with after our conversation about misogyny, which would then mean he is lying to me.

He has changed the passcode on his phone so I need to talk to him about that. Get the code and check again. Or link my phone if I can. He has my old iPhone and I have a Samsung.

His friends do seem to have more freedom than he does.

I do monitor his use, but as he's growing up, I wanted to give him more trust. My concern is that some of the material is women being dominated. Not rape, but in my mind it might as well be, as they're depicted being very angry and scared and crying. He seems to look for a lot of this material.

Perhaps I need to take his phone off him. He might need some mental health help from a professional. This does seem to be encouraged by his friends. Last time we spoke he seemed slightly ashamed, but not ashamed enough in my mind.

The date of the searches can be found by going deeper into the history of the Google account. Follow these instructions (these instructions work on the website, not sure about the app):

Press the 3 lines > "History" > "Manage all history" > Scroll through this page. Things starting with "Searched for" are previous searches and should have dates written on.

I don't know if this will work if your son is not signed into a Google account.

Feel free to ask for any more help needed!