For the last few weeks the girls are citing only one name, they think of it, dream of it, constantly ask to play with it – sad to say, the girls are addicted. I am talking about a virtual world designed in the style of (or should I say: very well inspired by) Club Penguin. In the last couple of months during which the girls have played this game I gained some very instructive lessons on the way children react to social conventions, on the way they are affected and the way they learn from the adult world, on the way children develop environmental understanding regarding real and fictional playmates, and on our role as parents in this equation..

(In the pic, google search for virtual world for kids)

Danger, Danger, Act!

Although the rules are nicely organized, bad words are immediately tracked down (“Mom, why can’t I write ‘cow’??”) and the instructions repeatedly tell the kids to refuse offers from other creatures and refrain from conveying personal details, still, young kids do not understand this.

The need to explain to them time and time again that the person on the other side may not be a child like them simply sitting in front of his or her computer asking them to “change clothes” or “get married”, is faced with a wall of genuine disbelief. They simply cannot perceive the sick mechanism driving a full grown man to sit in front of his computer and talk to young girls. I believe danger resides in the use of colorful characters and in the fact they know that this is a virtual, un-real world. A kid such as them may go out into the real world with very limited social capabilities. He is used to offering friendship to everyone and accepting friendship offers from anyone (how would that work with Facebook?) he is used to offering to give things to others and receive from them (‘would you like a candy?’) and more.

Pop Capitalism

The capitalistic experience is by far the strongest experience in this world, you may play the games if you feel like it, but their ultimate goal is to make more and more virtual money. What can you do with virtual money? Naturally, buy (and here another valuable citizen is released to the system…) and what will you buy? Of course, you will not buy food to feed your colorful friends straining under the burden of the regime, or your pets (which you bought for much of your virtual money), rather you will buy a nice house, a Jacuzzi, a car, space boots, etc. Can any of this be useful for you in the real world? The capitalistic experience is so strong that the child becomes grossly addicted to shopping.

Here I found a significant difference between both my daughters. The younger is a Tycoon. Without inhibitions she controls her cash flow, lives like a Hollywood pimp, changes wigs, clothes, pets and luxurious apartments at a Paris Hilton rate, while the older “saves” her money, not that there is anything else to do with it, as in this world there is nothing useful to do with the money. So she is just wondering there, without space boots, full of good will that is never realized.

Socialization

(In the pic, the real world in the eyes of 5 years old girl)

Kids may offer friendship to each other, and they do it at a dizzying pace. They can either talk on a secure chat (this is up to their parents) or on an open chat that enables real writing. The older one roams the open world that enables writing, while the younger still walks in the “safe” path – both communicate rapidly, setting dates with their classmates on such and such server at such and such world. On the other hand the website offers them many other experiences which are not suitable for children. Why do they need to get married? Why do they need to “fall in love” when they don’t know the first thing about it? Why do they need to be presented with terms which are not part of 6 and 8 year old girls? (My eight year old may know and be a little more interested in love, but a six year old?!) Every five minutes they come running to me asking: “Mom, can I get married?” “NO”, says the evil mother standing in the way of her two daughters to true love. What is this good for? How does this help them in this world? On the other hand, what happens after the wedding is very vague, thus making it a hollow gesture which is good for no one.

Hints for adults

I am not sure who stands behind this specific world, and it does not really matter, what matters is that children are getting a handful of hints and terms belonging to the capitalistic and cynical adult world, and they internalize it into their own concepts. It may seem charming and funny, but children’s minds are soft, and what assimilates in their brain does not easily come out later on, so they obtain adult terms and have the faulty notion they have the knowledge of how to cope with these terms (economy, love, responsibility and more). This may result in damaging their capability to truly understand how these things work in real life, but furthermore, as all this activity is happening in an addictive fun-environment, they cannot fully understand the conflict between the real world Mom insists on introducing them to and the easy-going fun-based world they encounter on the computer. I find this to be very dangerous. When children undergo experiences they cannot comprehend a mini-trauma evolves, and as with traumatic events, it has a stronger impact on the child compared to other, more mundane events. We may not see this, but our children know things that are not suitable to their age and developmental stage, and this is going to have an influence on them for as long as they live, for better and for worse.

What I feel after this last period of time is that my role as a parent and an educator is today more important than ever; in this world where everything is accessible to children in a very quick and experiential, yet deformed way. In many cases when a site is described as “safe for children” parents tend to let their children play freely, unsupervised, but one cannot leave it at that.

It is not that I am against these virtual worlds, I think they are wonderful, very well designed, and most important – they work, they work very well.

Virtual socialization will be part of our children’s lives almost as soon as they lay their hands on a computer for the first time, but this type of socialization is a double-edged sword (or as Lewis C.K. said: Everything in this world is a double-edged sword, but virtual socialization really is such); on the one hand it is filling and rewarding, and I, as an adult leading my life in this virtual world, am filled with happiness as my real friendships and relationships with people living on the other side of the ocean and joining my life via internet, are true and appreciated relationships. On the other hand, this poses a genuine danger even to me, to the people close to me, and to my ability to form relationships in the real world – and I am a grown-up (so to speak), I can see how teen-agers today communicate and what they do on the web, and I cannot refrain from turning on my critical mechanisms and be afraid of what I see.

Maybe I am simply a product of a different generation, mature, old (Hurray! Being old at 32 is simply the best!). A generation that does not understand how things are going on these days, and, yet, maybe I do understand. Only time can tell, but I know that the road kids are walking on today can easily become a slippery slope without real training. This is why I realized I must become involved, I must mediate, I must check what the girls are doing and more so – what they understand from it and how that affects the way they perceive the world.

I advise all parents to do as I do, we carefully hand-pick our kids’ schools, we talk about their teachers and their extra curricular activities, but note where your kids are most excited, where their emotions are most stirred, as there lies the potential for danger, or, in a more positive attitude – there lies your chance to significant parental involvement and an educational and perceptual turning point.