There's plenty of coverage in the UK media today of a government review carried out by psychologist Dr Tanya Byron, which focuses on children and new technology. Most of the coverage has focused on console games, and Byron's recommendation that the age classification system should be reformed. However, there's a lot in there that's relevant to virtual worlds too.
Byron was asked to lead the independent review in September 2007, and she’s since been meeting a number of industry bodies and campaigning organisations, as well as gathering evidence from children and young people, and commissioning qualitative research based on interviews with parents and children around the country.
With virtual worlds aimed at children growing fast, Byron’s recommendations have clear relevance. The key ones are:
- Creating a new UK Council for Child Internet Safety, including members from government, the industry, children’s charities and other “stakeholders”. It would be good to see some involvement in this from the virtual worlds industry - perhaps Disney, given its plans to expand Club Penguin in the UK?
- Better regulation of online advertising - an increasingly popular element in virtual worlds - as well as independently monitored codes of practice in areas like user-generated content.
- Launching a high-profile public information and awareness campaign on child internet safety, and improving the education of children AND their parents in terms of these issues.
None of this is a threat to most virtual worlds aimed at children - in fact, the most popular have stringent policies in place already. However, one conclusion to be drawn from the Byron review is that virtual worlds need to effectively communicate this to parents, so they can be more clued in (and thus more confident) on their children’s use of these worlds. Check Byron’s comments:
“This is also about overcoming the generational ‘digital divide’ where parents do not feel equipped to help their children because they didn’t grow up with these sophisticated technologies themselves and therefore don’t understand them; this can lead to fear and a sense of helplessness. This is compounded by children and young people’s greater skill and confidence in using new technology.”
Interestingly, there’s been a lot of talk over whether children should have computers in their bedrooms or not - with the implication being that using virtual worlds on PCs in communal areas will enable their parents to be more in touch with what they’re doing. Byron also has an interesting analogy to describe the way parents should view their children’s digital activities:
“A useful way for us all to think about this is to look at how we protect children in places of benefit and risk in the real (offline) world: public swimming pools. Here there are safety signs and information; shallow as well as deep ends; swimming aids and lifeguards; doors, locks and alarms. However children will sometimes take risks and jump into waters too deep for them or want to climb walls and get through locked doors – therefore we also teach them how to swim. We must adopt the same combination of approaches in order to enable our children and young people to navigate these exciting digital waters while supporting and empowering them to do so safely.”
It’s a thought-provoking report, and one that strikes a noticeably moderate tone, stressing the benefits of new technology as well as the risks. What are your thoughts?
1 comments
Richard A. Bartle
01.04.08 at 14:56