One of the great benefits of having small children is the large number of things you can blame on them, with zero social repercussions. My steadfast aversion to leaving the house has been greatly aided by their presence in my life and the inexhaustible excuses they provide to get out of any party, event or social function imaginable. Yes, I’d rather eat glass than attend your cousin’s improv comedy performance at something called the Dog & Trousers Giggle Jam, but I don’t have to say so. I can just tell you my kids have some pleasingly disgusting but short-lived illness and there will be zero follow-up questions. The general state of our house, too, my wife and I can lay entirely at our children’s feet. Crisp wrappers down the back of the sofa? Kids. Lollipop sticks stuck to the carpet? Kids. A wine glass on the mantlepiece, with lipstick on its rim, half-filled with exactly the brand of poncy orange wine my wife prefers? Kids.Unfortunately, this impulse occasionally has some drawbacks, which I discovered to my chagrin this week. I was lamenting the effects said kids were having on my YouTube algorithm, with their consistent use of it for their own ends. Even when using the Kids version of the app, their selections show up in my history, making it a bit of a chore for me to find anything I’m looking for. I said as much to a pal, handing him my phone to demonstrate the phenomenon. And, true to form, there they were; dozens of Bluey episodes and Paw Patrol toy playthroughs from my daughter, endless Minecraft explainers and video essays about chess from my son. “What’s this?” he said, angling the screen towards me, and causing my stomach to drop a little. He was indicating a video in which an osteopath performs spinal manipulations on old people. In fact, it was a series of such videos, which he was now scrolling past at such a clip it really emphasised just how many had been watched in sequence. “Ah,” I said, “well, um, yeah, here – give me back my phone.” Within that instant, I was reminded of something that really should be a universal law of modern life, one which I as a savvy internet native should never have forgotten: a video search history is no idle plaything, but a deep and probing X-ray of one’s soul. “Yes,” I said, “I sometimes enjoy watching videos where people’s backs are made to crack in satisfying ways – like, check this one out, he treats that guy like human bubble wrap." I motioned to a specific video in the rotation and noted, perhaps, concern on his part. Concern that I not only watched so many videos of this type, but knew them well enough to isolate specific moments within them.On he went, scrolling past dozens of videos of 1990s footballers talking about working under Brian Clough, and a solid two or three more about the history of the internal combustion engine. There was a grateful pause for the altogether more creditable sequence of old drum-and-bass white labels, and Aphex Twin B-sides, before a dizzying array of shorts in which a guy from northern England does professional deep cleans of battered cars.[ Séamas O’Reilly: I met my son crying at the school gates and felt like a war criminalOpens in new window ]“You don’t even have a car,” he mumbled, in a tone of quiet alarm. “Yes, I know,” I said, “but the cleaning – it’s satisfying to watch.” He was too polite to address whether my love of watching people clean had ever inspired me to, say, perform a crisp packet audit of my own livingroom. On and on it went, past the hour or two I spent listening to baroque chamber music four days ago and on to several videos of babies having cochlear implants installed. He clicks play and we watch an impassive little tot bursting into smiles as he hears his mother’s voice for the first time. No match for its cuteness, we collapse into involuntary grins ourselves. These, I tell him, I watch every once in a while, when the world’s background hum of horror becomes unbearable and I just want to have a good old cry at something kind and joyous happening in the world. Having never been a particularly hard man at any stage of my life, I explain, I’ve become much more sentimental since my kids were born. “It’s their fault,” I say, for once truthfully, as we settle in to watch a dozen more.