Immersive digital experiences accessed through virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (VR) devices—its cultural import and how it may change our behaviors is less clear. This is particularly true with regard to the most vulnerable new metaverse initiates—children.
Due to the metaverse’s immersive interface and virtual interactions with other users, along with largely non-uniform user safety policies across services, the technology represents a myriad of unknowns for families with young children.
Protecting children in the metaverse will need to go beyond warning labels
Roblox is one of the most popular gaming environments for children with over 150 million users, half of whom are under 13 years old. It serves games on traditional gaming and VR formats, where it filters chats for inappropriate language, and vigorously moderates the site for behavior that violates its guidelines.
Still, this approach hasn’t become the norm in the metaverse. With Facebook the early leader in metaverse technologies, it’s likely to be the portal into the space for many parents and children. But for Oculus, Facebook’s VR app platform, the safety page simply states, “While we know that children under 13 may want to use Oculus devices, we do not permit them to create accounts or use Oculus devices.”
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Read more: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/parents-metaverse-children-risks-vr-ar/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_video&utm_term=1_1&utm_content=24343_things_parents_know_metaverse&utm_campaign=social_video_2021