Do you know the famous YouTube kids TV show, Cocomelon?
According to the New York Times, kids who watch shows like Cocomelon enter an almost trance-like state. Here's a video of them reacting to the soundtrack.
This technique of controlling attention started with Sesame Street. During their secret tests, they would trap kids between two screens. On one, they'd show their program, and on the other, colorful distractors. That's when they found out they could use quick cuts, bright colors, and sudden movements to force kids to watch, whether they wanted to or not.
Today, the company behind Cocomelon has supercharged this with a tool called Distractor. Similar to Sesame Street's experiments, they set up a two-monitor setup. One screen plays Cocomelon, while the other shows regular everyday activities like someone pouring coffee or getting a haircut. Every time a child's attention shifts to real-life scenes researchers note it down and that helps them to further categorise how they can improve their quality of tance. They use this data to figure out exactly which parts of their shows work and which don't.
Take the colours, for example. Cocomelon uses colours that have maximum saturation, the same technique used in slot machines. You can also clearly observe how they pace their scenes and how the scene changes every 1-2 seconds, making regular-paced activities seem boring.
The truth is even scarier. Cocomelon has grown into a monster, becoming the second most watched and third most followed channel on YouTube, pulling in a terrifying 7.8 billion views every month. Last year, more kids sat glued to Cocomelon than the amount of people who watched Squid Game and Bridgerton combined.
