New Survey Suggests Parents Are Scared of Today's Video Games, But...
...while the fears are valid, it also points towards generational gaps in taste and culture.
“Parents are scared about what their children might get exposed to” is not new, let alone worth a splashy headline. It’s all part of growing up, for parents and their children. Try your best, but technology and culture eventually leave you behind. It’s a cycle. But it doesn’t mean those fears aren’t valid, and can come from an informed place, as evidenced by a recent survey by image moderation company WebPurify.
The survey, conducted last month with a sample size of 1008 parents in the US by the research firm Censuswide, had some noteworthy, if unsurprising, results. Such as:
74% of parents “say they’ve seen an obviously inappropriate gamer username”
44% of parents “agree in-game user-generated content (UGC) is one of the most harmful aspects of video games for kids”
66% of parents have witness “unchecked bullying of another play”
58% of parents have seen “predatory behavior”
That’s called playing an online video game, for better and worse. Which isn’t isn’t to say it’s a status quo anyone, parent or nonparent alike, should find acceptable, but we’ve all been there. Side note: my oldest daughter’s reading comprehension grows every single day, and eventually, we’re going to cross a threshold where we’ll have to have a deeper conversation about possible online interactions. In a sense, having not passed this reading threshold has acted as a protective barrier for her online so far.
You can read the entire survey by WebPurify over here.
WebPurify, which leverages human and artificial intelligence tools for content moderation, isn’t a big name in video games currently, where creators and hardware makers have long struggled to reign in unruly and toxic behavior that can be alienating and even harmful. The company told me it conducted the poll because of rapid advances in social types of gaming, like virtual and augmented reality.
“I have two young nephews who I personally spend time gaming with and I’ve absolutely observed inappropriate in-game interactions that are troubling,” said WebPurify VP and trust and safety Alexandra Popken in an email interview. “With children increasingly online and in front of screens, we need to have appropriate guardrails in place to ensure their safety.”
Popken previously worked at Twitter, starting at the company way back in 2013.
Some of the findings feel like generational tensions, more than anything, like:
58% of parents “believe kids today like more violent video games than when they were growing up”
53% of parents “say the increased amount of game options available today encourages kids to seek out the ones with the most shock value”
Maybe. But games have always been violent. In fact, violence is one of the medium’s defining traits! We’ve been blowing things up, be it people or creatures, since games were invented. The graphics are realistic, but nothing in the science suggests it’s creating more desensitized kids. There’s even reason to believe it’s the opposite!
“What we know from research is that video games tend to be related to decreases in homicides and aggregated assaults,” said Patrick Markey, co-author of the 2019 book Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong, in a story I did about violent games and their impact. “If that is our main concern (decreasing crime) then the evidence strongly suggests they have no impact or actually make out society safer.”
As for kids “seeking out” games with the “shock value,” that just feels like, again, a generational gap on culture. I played Mortal Kombat because it was a good game, but I also played it because it was declared dangerous. Kids are gonna gravitate towards that. it also feels like general confusion when it comes to brand-new platforms like Roblox.
Grand Theft Auto 3 was one of the biggest games of my youth. Do you know what’s going to be one of the biggest video games of the next decade? Grand Theft Auto 6.
It’s not all bad, though.
“We found it surprising that the research shows parents are actually less concerned about the content of games themselves, and more about risky in-game player interactions and user-generated content,” said Popken. “We think this adds an interesting perspective to the oft-reported narrative that games themselves are harmful to children, and underscores the need for developers to have content moderation capabilities in place to police unchecked user-generated content.”
I think that’s right, and closer to the truth of the matter.
The most telling takeaway from the survey is a reason I started Crossplay:
66% of parents “wish their gaming console made it easier to restrict inappropriate content”
61% of parents “would like to control every game their child has access to”
45% of parents “say they don’t trust their gaming consoles’ parental controls to effectively restrict all inappropriate content”
Parents have more tools at their disposal then they’re aware of, but that’s the problem: they aren’t aware. One of the longtime ideas I’ve had for Crossplay is doing step-by-step guides for screen and content controls on the major platforms, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and put them together. Perhaps this is the push that I need.
Which isn’t to say platforms can’t be doing more. But parents do have power.
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
What platform do you have the most screen/content control questions about? I’ll likely start with the Switch, simply because it’s such a popular vehicle for kids.
It doesn’t help that each platform has separate parental controls, which means learning what you can and can’t do across every platform. It’s exhausting.
Content moderation sounds like such a miserable job, even if AI might help.
Gosh I can't wait for the next generation of chat filters that actually work instead of only instigating more creative ways to spell things. Gooner, gooning, nagger, etc etc etc.
I've certainly heard some horror stories when it come to Roblox and user created levels. We aren't there yet, but I'm not looking forward to the day my child wants to do online gaming. Speaking for myself, I think I prefer solo gaming so I don't run into a lot of these problems! But in the world of Roblox, Fortnight, Apex Legends, and whatever else I'm sure this is a big problem.
Then again my parents were upset when I was playing Mortal Kombat 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3, so each generation has a little big of this I guess.