My kids are 11 and 12. We have a YouTube time limit of 30 mins a day, and there are some videos that are just not allowed. Nothing with too much bad language, Nothing with people doing dangerous things to be funny, nothing with rich people buying stuff to break. I did spend some time in both my kids accounts blocking streamers I thought where just bad influences. It has given us a chance to talk about why some of the stuff on YouTube is stupid.
Nobody in our house has used or is interested in TikTok so I have not had to deal with that.
My kids know I hate Robox but they are allowed to play. (I'm a game developer). The kids are are not allowed to spend pocket money on Robucks, but they do get gift cards from friends and family on special occasions and because the Robucks are so rare they have become very precious. The kids agonize over every purchase. They carefully evaluate the value of things. They look for the scams, they avoid gambling and loot boxes, and instead look for things with more value.
We have also had the opportunity to discuss that when the servers go down, all this virtual stuff they seem to own will disappear. That they don't really own it.
As much as I like to hate Roblox, it has been good for my kids. There is a wide variety of free content and you can try before you buy. Its multiplayer by default so it's social in the good way, you are actually talking, thinking and playing with your friends. And both my kids use the editor creating new content and leaning programming.
Any specific reason for hating roblox? I'm especially interested in game developer perspective (parent perspective is familiar to me being father of two and aware that most of roblox content is of rather poor quality)
It seemed unusually addictive with a lot of stupid games that were nonetheless oddly captivating. Reminded me a lot of addictive (to kids) shit YouTube content. Roblox also had poor parental controls.
Anything that serves up dumb or toxic content that is extremely “engaging” gets banned. YouTube was the worst by far but TikTok and Roblox also meet this criteria.
I forgot to mention Instagram. Kids haven’t seen it but it’s been preemptively banned because it’s full of toxic influencers and other trash. Could say the same about Facebook but kids have zero interest in that so no need to bother. Facebook is where older people go to get their brains sucked out by conspiritainment and political echo chamber groups.
Nobody in our house has used or is interested in TikTok so I have not had to deal with that.
My kids know I hate Robox but they are allowed to play. (I'm a game developer). The kids are are not allowed to spend pocket money on Robucks, but they do get gift cards from friends and family on special occasions and because the Robucks are so rare they have become very precious. The kids agonize over every purchase. They carefully evaluate the value of things. They look for the scams, they avoid gambling and loot boxes, and instead look for things with more value.
We have also had the opportunity to discuss that when the servers go down, all this virtual stuff they seem to own will disappear. That they don't really own it.
As much as I like to hate Roblox, it has been good for my kids. There is a wide variety of free content and you can try before you buy. Its multiplayer by default so it's social in the good way, you are actually talking, thinking and playing with your friends. And both my kids use the editor creating new content and leaning programming.