Moderator wisdom: Virtual worlds' youth-safety experts

Virtual worlds are a red-hot topic these days, probably because of their rapid growth and the US Federal Trade Commission's report on their content (see "Related links" below). I can think of two more reasons to add: ConnectSafely's brand-new safety tips for parents (shameless plug, links below) and insights from master virtual-world moderators in a recent 3-part series on the subject at ShapingYouth.org and in a white paper, "How to Moderate Teens and Tweens," at eModeration, London-based provider of community management in 31 languages.

Three points – one each about moderating kids, tweens, and teens – really leaped out at me as I read these contributions (just a sampler of the insights in them), and I think parents will find them helpful:

1. Two types of virtual-world moderators: In Part 3 of Shaping Youth's series, eModeration describes how virtual worlds are evolving, as illustrated by moderation techniques: The more traditional silent moderator "stays in the background, blocking offensive material from participants, warning users, defusing confrontation and reacting to abusive or illegal behavior. The second and increasingly popular type is the in-game moderator, who actively participates as a character or avatar ... encouraging children to explore and try new things and have as positive experience as possible, but stay safe and secure while doing so.” Gazillion Entertainment's director of user engagement Izzy Neis describes the former as the "elephant in the corner"; eModeration compares the latter to the fun, engaging host of a kids' birthday party. I think the latter type – because kid users tend to look up to this cool, fun "older avatar" – presents a tremendous opportunity for modeling civil behavior and good in-world citizenship.

2. Tween VW behavior is as dynamic as the real-world kind. Moderators are finding that, just as tweens move back and forth between children's play and playing at being adults in the real world, they do the same in virtual worlds. EModeration's Littleton quotes Neis as saying, "It's not always one or the other – often tween users balances between the two, depending on how their day went, or what escapism they need, or what reinforcement/acknowledgement they crave. They're taking the experiences they've had, applying imagination and exploring new territory (mainly adult situations)." She says virtual worlds see "the same playground problems kids have every day: bullying, heartache, betrayal, etc." That's why it's just as important, as we say in our VW safety tips, for parents to talk with their kids about what's going in their virtual worlds as what's going on at school. But moderation in all things (no pun intended). Kids also need some space. Virtual worlds, Neis says, "provide an outlet and a chance to develop other aspects of their personalities [which] they feel unable to explore during real life for fear of rejection, or sometimes they're just trying something to try it - an opportunity to fail without physical consequence.”

3. The delicate balance between over- and under-moderating teens: An experienced moderator in the UK, Amy Rountree, told Littleton that “moderating [youth] 16+ communities is about balance." She says that, if virtual world rules and moderators are too heavy-handed, users go elsewhere. If the moderation's too easygoing, both the company and its users are at risk. This echoes what we say at ConnectSafely.org about safety on the social Web: If parents are too controlling, kids – who have many workarounds and access points – tend to go "underground" to sites parents may've never heard of, to friends' houses where rules are more lax, to establish alternate "stealth" profiles and accounts parents aren't aware of, etc., etc., all of which spells even less parental input and guidance. Kids are safer when parents, like moderators, find the balance between "over- and under-moderating" and keep the communication lines open (see also "'Soft power' parenting works better").

Note Tamara Littleton's bottom line in her white paper: "Our view is that if you [a virtual world company] are inviting teens or tweens into your online space, you are in effect throwing a huge round-the-clock party for them. And what parent in their right mind would send out invitations worldwide, then leave the keys to the liquor cabinet with their 15-year-old and go away for the weekend?"

Related links

ConnectSafely.org's virtual world safety tips for parents of kids and teens, and tech policy expert Adam Thierer's review of them

"Virtual Parentalism," by Washington & Lee University law professor and dad Joshua Fairfield – the first of three parts at the Tech Liberation Front blog

Crisp Thinking's thinking on VW safety: SocialMediaPortal.com's interview on "detection and analysis of inappropriate online behavior" with Rebecca Newton, head of safety at Crisp Thinking, a provider of moderation technology for virtual-world companies

Shaping Youth series on moderating kids, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

"How to Moderate Teens and Tweens" by Tamara Littleton, CEO of eModeration

The FTC's "Virtual Worlds & Kids: Mapping the Risks"

My virtual world news roundup last month last month

Virtual world numbers

"Top 8 workarounds of kid virtual-world Users"

FTC's milestone report on virtual worlds

This is pioneering stuff on the part of the US government. The Federal Trade Commission today sent to Congress its close study of 27 online virtual worlds – 14 for children under 13 and 13 aimed at teens and adults – looking at the level of sexually explicit and violent content and what the VWs were doing to protect children from it. I think it's important for parents to keep in mind when reading the study or just the highlights here that "content" in virtual worlds means user-generated content (which is why, in "Online Safety 3.0," we put so much stress on viewing children as stakeholders in their own well-being online and teaching them to be good citizens in their online and offline communities). Here are some key findings:

The FTC found at least one instance of either sexually or violently explicit content in 19 of the 27 worlds – heavy (sex or violence) in five of them, moderate in four, and "only a low amount in the remaining 10 worlds in which explicit content was found."

Of the 14 VWs for kids under 13, 7 contained no explicit content, 1 had a moderate amount, and 6 had a low amount.

Nearly all the explicit content found in the kids' VWs "appeared in the form of text posted in chat rooms, on message boards, or in discussion forums."

The Commission found more explicit content in VWs aimed at teens or adults, finding it in 12 of the 13 in this category, with a heavy amount in 5 of them, moderate in 3, and a low amount in 4 of the 13.

Not just text: Half the explicit content found in the teen- and adult-oriented virtual worlds was text-based, while the other half appeared as graphics, occasionally with accompanying audio.

The report goes into measures these 27 VWs surveyed take to keep minors away from explicit content, including "age screens" designed to keep minors from registering below a site's minimum age (what the FTC calls "only a threshold measure"); "adults only" sections requiring subscriptions or age verifications (see "'Red-light district' makes virtual world safer"); abuse reporting and other flagging of inappropriate content; human moderation; and some filtering technology. "The report recommends that parents and children become better educated about online virtual worlds" and that virtual-world "operators should ensure that they have mechanisms in place to limit youth exposure to explicit content in their online virtual worlds." In the two pages of Appendix A (of the full, 23-page report + appendices), you'll find a chart of all the virtual worlds the FTC reviewed. [See also my VW news roundup last week and "200 virtual worlds for kids."]

This is a great start. As purely user-driven media, virtual worlds are a frontier for research on online behavior. The FTC was charged by Congress "merely" with determining the level of harmful content, not behavior – I really think because adults continue to think in a binary, either-or way about extremely fluid environments that are mashups of content and behavior. Where is it really just one or the other, what is "content" in social media, and how do we define "harmful"? We also need to define "virtual worlds." Some of these properties are largely avatar chat, some are games (with quests), some are worlds with games but not quests in them. Still, we've got some great talking points and very useful data to build on.

Quest Atlantis, VWs & academic situational awareness

In a virtual world, science students can be scientists. In Quest Atlantis, students explore scientific problems or quests, so that – in addition to learning scientific content on quests – they find themselves in situations where they have to put that new knowledge to actual use. In other words they're being scientists, not just learning science. What a "science class"! Prof. Sasha Barab, one of the creators of the Quest Atlantis educational virtual world at the University of Indiana School of Education, calls this "transformational play," reports Cindy Richards at the MacArthur Foundation's "Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning." Maybe also transformational learning? [BTW, I love the term "situational awareness," feeling it has so many applications - social, academic, developmental (parenting) - online and offline. Online – like digital citizenship and media literacy – it's protective as well as promotive of academic success. Just as in Quest Atlantis, you learn what it's like actually to be a scientist or environmentalist, in social network sites you can learn what's it's like to be a good friend online and offline – what words, photo-tagging, or behavior has the potential to support or hurt others. We think about situational awareness a lot at our house. For example, some language that's common in Xbox Live is not at all appropriate in other situations, including at ice hockey practice! Developing the awareness that can make that distinction has a lot of athletic and social benefits!]

Virtual-world news update

A lot of news about virtual worlds has crossed my laptop lately, so – since this is a big growth sector of cyberspace (with the global VW population growing from 186.5 million now to 638 million by 2015, according to Strategy Analytics) – I thought I'd package it up for you....

1. Avatar PR

Now (if not yesterday or last year) is a good time to fold avatars into family discussion about reputations and self-representation online. Even if your child's favorite avatar is waddling around in Club Penguin, it would be good to ask to see the penguin, if you haven't already, talk about that penguin's favorite activities in-world, how many friends it has, and what sorts of things they do together. Why am I telling you all this? Early lessons in social Web spin control – not to mention early prep for the business world.

By the end of 2013, 70% of businesses will have behavior and dress code policies for employees whose online avatars represent their organization," Virtual World News reports. Gartner recently published "Avatars in the Enterprise: Six Guidelines to Enable Success," CNET reports.

As for the littlest VW citizens, Virtual Worlds News recently reported that, at 27% growth between now and 2015, children aged 5-9 are the biggest growth sector of a global virtual world population (which itself will grow from 186 million to 640 million by 2015). VW News was citing Strategy Analytics figures. For insights into day-to-day life in a teen virtual world, check out this YPulse interview with Gaia Online's Joe Hyrkin.

2. Two new arrivals

Israel-based Shidonni.com where kids 4-10 draw and animate their own animal avatars, which can then be turned into real stuffed animals! There's a bit of a Webkinz model, but this is much more appealing to kids because they're the producers. Here's coverage at Virtual Worlds News.

Omaha, Nebraska-based KidCommand.com for 7-to-12-year-olds is a virtual world that aims to teach kids and tweens about the real world so they can help make it better. The company, Green Bein' Productions, Inc., wants to team up with other organizations that work to empower kids (e.g., schools, after-school programs, scouting). Here's Virtual Worlds News.

3. Second Life's booming economy

On average, users of virtual world Second Life spend 100 minutes in-world per visit, adding up to more than 1 billion hours so far, PC World reports. Even more interesting, though, is the virtual world's very real economy. "The equivalent of more than US$1 billion has been transacted between residents in Second Life, who purchase virtual goods and services from one another." The in-world economy grew 54% year-over-year (between third quarter 2008 and third quarter this year), Virtual Worlds News reported more recently. This is a multinational economy: "Users from the United States accounted for 37% of the economy, followed by Germany and Italy at 8% each, France at 7%, and the UK at 5%." Here's a list of dozens of businesses that have a presence in Second Life – in retail, manufacturing, technology, travel, real estate, finance, communications, etc. (I couldn't find anything more recent than this, but I doubt the number has gone down.)

4. Avatars in MySpace

MySpace, which has always been as much a self-expression tool as a social utility is expanding those self-expression features. In an arrangement with the newly profitable teen virtual world Meez Nation, MySpace users can now create avatars, Ad Week reports (CNET mentioned Meez's profitable status).

Meez and MySpace have music and other media sharing in common, Meez CEO John Cahill said in an interview with YPulse. "Our users watch popular videos together, listen and dance to music together, and we're always offering new virtual goods and "Roomz" tied to events like Halloween, for example. See YPulse for more.

5. Virtual worlds in the movies

Hollywood's all over it – not so much making money in virtual worlds as telling stories about them, the San Jose Mercury News reports. There's Second Skin (which I blogged about here), recently released Gamer and Surrogate, James Cameron's Avatar in December, and next year's Tron Legacy from Disney and Christopher Nolan's Inception. [See also "'Red-light district' makes virtual world safer."]

Related link

KZERO, a virtual worlds research and consulting firm in the UK, has a slide show showing more than 10 dozen companies marketing in virtual worlds (with screen shots of their locations) here. [They put out great resources but are not great at returning press calls.]

My avatar, my self

Neuroscientists are looking into the relationship between self and avatar. A study of World of Warcraft players in their 20s (14 men and 1 woman) who spend an average of 23 hours a week in the game/world was recently presented at the Society of Neuroscience, NewScientist.com reports. From fMRI scans of the players' brains, the study found "next to no difference" in activity in the areas of the brain involved in self-reflection and judgment at times when the players were thinking about their virtual selves vs. times when they were thinking about their actual selves. "Disentangling how the brain regards avatars versus real individuals may help explain why some people spend large chunks of their life playing immersive online games," the study's lead author, Kristina Caudle, a social neuroscientist at Dartmouth University, said. In future, she wants "to study volunteers who spend less time playing World of Warcraft to see if there are differences in how their brains discriminate between real and virtual worlds."

Virtual Halloween, real fun

Curious about how Halloween is celebrated virtually? WeeWorld.com's some 30 million WeeMees (registered users), who take the holiday pretty seriously, offer some examples. WeeWorld says that about 60% of all virtual goods purchased and "the vast majority of the gifts being given" in-world this month are Halloween-related (market researcher In-Stat predicts the total revenue in virtual worlds – driven primarily by the sale of virtual goods – will exceed $3 billion by 2012). "The most popular costumes for WeeMees this season are a cute witch for girls and a Saw-inspired mask for boys [see the home page for examples]. WeeMees can have pets, or Cweetures, and there are special limited-edition ones available only at Halloween time. "WeeMees are also: decorating their rooms with animated zombies, skeletons, pumpkins and more; sending branded gifts, getting movie-themed gear and watching the premier of the movie Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. Then there's the ever-popular costume contest and a haunted house. Meanwhile, "WeeMees are trying not to get 'tricked' this year by their friends, e.g. being turned into a pumpkin or toilet papered."

Virtual world shakeout?

That's what MediaWeek says, but it's referring to those associated with traditional media, such as MTV's virtual worlds tied to "the hit series Laguna Beach and The Hills." It adds that "the CW quietly shut down its two-year-old Gossip Girl-themed virtual world a few months ago." But Club Penguin, Stardoll, and Gaia Online seem to be unaffected. MediaWeek points to an interesting question from a media executive – "if one story [as in one TV show's storyline] is big enough" to sustain a whole (virtual) world. Maybe not. Maybe it takes a whole lot of stories: those of all its users! [For some VW population numbers, see this.]

Thin avatar, thinner self?

Virtual world "residents" and their parents know what avatars are: An in-world representative of you. In Second Life, though some users have more than one avatar, most avatars are quite human-looking versions of users. It depends on the world quite a bit. In ClubPenguin, they're, well, penguins. In a lot of kids' virtual worlds, the avatars are cartoon-y humans with big eyes and heads. In videogames, there's a huge range of virtual selves, from human-like to fantasy creatures with special powers.

I'm telling you all this because a new study indicates that people's avatars can be aspirational or motivational, at least in terms of appearance. It found that "creating a thin and physically fit online avatar may encourage people to become healthier and more physically fit in real life," Triangle Business Journal reports. The study, by RTI International, found that that "80% of respondents who reported high levels of physical activity for their avatars also reported participating in high levels of physical activity in their real lives." The article appeared in the August issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research.

Starring students: Real-world projects in virtual world

Wonder how and what students are taught in virtual worlds? Watch this video (13:46) at Teachers TV, a professional development site in the UK (which has similar videos on blogs, cellphones, and podcasting in the classroom here). You'll see how middle-school student Daniel made the case for and, "in a couple of weeks," built an exhibition of the history of steam engines in Second Life, his teacher said, and how a group of students were asked to help turn a crumbling historic jetty on the North Sea coast into a tourism destination by building and restoring it virtually, again in Second Life. "Where else on Earth could you give a bunch of youngsters the space to build Skinningrove Jetty with some stairs going up to it out into the sea?" asks one of the teachers involved. Another said, "We have some students who are very confident working by themselves but they're not so good in a group.... One of the brightest students we have tends to hide his work from the others because he doesn't want them to be copying it, whereas now he's taking more of a sharing role...." Here's more on the Schome Project for 21st-century learning, whose island in the virtual world provides space for these student engineering and building projects.

Virtual economies & kids

Virtual worlds make their money very differently from social-network sites - mostly from selling virtual objects. Though Disney's Pixie Hollow and Webkinz and Webkinz, Jr. sell real objects such as "friendship bracelets" and plush toys, the economies of most virtual worlds (and multiplayer online games) rely on objects and artifacts such as clothing, furniture, and other property. Social sites, which to date have focused more on display ads, too, are moving into virtual-object retail (see this about Hi5 selling virtual gifts). A figure cited by The Economist indicates everybody may be moving in this direction, though there's much to be learned about this business model. The article mentions that users at a popular VW aimed at teens, Gaia Online, "spend more than $1 million per month on virtual items." Gaia recently hired a full-time economist, The Economist says, "to grapple with problems that are well known in the real world, such as inflation and an unequal distribution of wealth" (maybe child psychologists will need to employed too!). The British news magazine otherwise paints a more measured picture of virtual-world popularity than do other news outlets, but the figure it cites is "regular visitors," not overall registered users. "In America, nearly 10 million children and teenagers visit virtual worlds regularly," it refers to eMarketer as finding. Virtual Worlds News earlier cited data from Strategy Analytics projecting an overall global population of 186 million now, growing to 640m by 2015 (users of all ages - I blogged about that here). My most recent post on VW population is here.

Social site + virtual world = Hi5

It's the first marriage I've seen of social networking and virtual worlds: that of Auckland-based Small Worlds and San Francisco-based Hi5.com, by most measures one of the world's Top 20 social-network sites. A bit about SmallWorlds.com (which is not a kids' virtual world) from Venture Beat: Like Hi5, it's aimed at people 13 and up. It has signed up 650,000 users since launch last December, about 65% of them female and half aged 13-18 (30% 19-35). One of its attractions is that, in building out your "small world," you can "easily import anything [you've] created on the Web." Small Worlds also has "built-in incentives to keep users coming back. The more you participate, the more access you get to virtual items." Hi5 had already launched its games channel earlier this year, so this seems a very logical next step. It also already had a virtual economy in place (users could pay for virtual gifts with real-money-based Hi5 "Coins"), so now users will have spaces in which to place virtual furniture, art, plants, etc., along the lines of the very international Habbo, which could be considered a precursor to the Hi5/SmallWorlds arrangement. What's new is mature social network and fairly well-established VW making a go of it together.

Virtual-word murder, real-life arrest

It's the first known arrest for the murder of an avatar. Japanese police arrested a 43-year-old woman in southern Japan for murdering the avatar of a 33-year-old man in northern Japan, Fox News reports. Their avatars had been married in MapleStory, a virtual world that has seven Asian editions (Korean, Japanese, Thai, etc.) as well as editions for North America, Europe, and most recently Brazil . She was so angry upon hearing of the avatars' "sudden divorce" that she allegedly used his log-in info, obtained in happier times, to kill his avatar off. "The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world," a Japanese official told Fox, but was arrested and "jailed [after being transported 620 miles north to Sapporo] on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data." If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000. Teacher Vicki Davis in Atlanta uses this story as an example of how "online behavior has offline consequences" and how technology is not the issue (see TechLearning.com): "So many schools are punishing the portal, the website, the tool," she writes. "It is not the tool's fault that humans misbehave. That is human nature. Hold the humans accountable who do wrong things in these spaces." I think she's absolutely right but also hope people's take-away on the Japanese story is that the woman was arrested for hacking not murdering an avatar.

5, er, 6 new 'worlds'

More signs of where virtual worlds are heading. The new "worlds" (defined loosely as such by Virtual World News) are a service that blends social networking and a virtual-world-like (3D) online environment; two new MMOGs (massively multiplayer online game), one for peer-to-peer learning and one sort of like a World of Warcraft with a twist; a 3D-world feature for the Web browser; and technology that turns a digital camera aims into a tool for "merging the virtual and real worlds." They're being unveiled at the TechCrunch conference this week (you can watch presentations live on that Web page). In TechCrunch50.com, I watched the presentation by a founder and two young users of a sixth world, Tweegee.com, a soon-to-be-launched competitor to ClubPenguin that claims to be safe and have features not found in any other kid sites. There are so many of these popping up - Tweegee's not even on Virtual Worlds Management's list of 150 live and developing worlds for youth (see this).

Virtual Worlds field trip

One of the most interesting comments made at the second-annual Virtual Worlds Conference I attended in L.A. this week was from Jon Landau, producer of Titanic and of a project-in-progress called Avatar. Landau said, "I grew up being taught to worry about 'big brother'; with the Internet we have to worry about little brother." I don't think anybody else heard that quite as acutely as an advocate of children's online safety would. Not only is little brother watching, little brother (of any age, basically everybody on the user-driven, fixed and mobile network) is commenting, uploading, producing, entertaining, collaborating, socializing, and exploring identity, as well as creating imposter profiles, gaming the game system, sending nude phone-snapped photos, etc. We're dealing with a new set of blended conditions, with online life not just mirroring "real life" but changing it as well, in subtle ways we don't yet fully understand.

One thing that's clear from the research but was confirmed (in my head, not yet by speakers) everywhere I turned at the conference: digital ethics and citizenship have to be central to the discussion as we learn how to negotiate this new space where – definitely for kids, in any case - the line between online and offline is fading. Learning how to behave ethically in community whether digital or physical is central to children's well-being online, right now and increasingly as we move forward.

Really exciting projects are going on in and with virtual worlds in schools around the US and world. Check out the collaborative work between schools in California, Japan, and Australia at PacRim Exchange; with libraries in Teen Second Life and youth librarians of the Eye4You Alliance; on virtual islands for public school students (Ramapo Islands) in Teen Second Life; and in Second Life and New York City with nonprofit Global Kids, which aims to help "transform urban youth into successful students as well as global and community leaders" (I want to zoom in on some of these powerful projects in future posts).

I spoke with a northern California principal, Patti Purcell of Bel Aire Elementary School, about Bel Aire's six-week pilot project teaching students digital citizenship "in-world" and in the classroom with the help of children's virtual world Dizzywood. Patti told me she felt students needed a space where they could actually practice what they learned in character education, which has long been part of the curriculum. One lesson was in collaborative tree-planting. Dizzywood co-founder Scott Arpajian told me certainly any child can plant a tree in Dizzywood, but the "game" is designed so that planting gets "exponentially faster [and a lot more fun] when they help each other out." Students are given time to explore the virtual world (they're given "agency," a sense of place and ownership in-world), but the experience is structured too, with in-world activities always followed by classroom discussion. "Graduation" included presentations by the students before an audience of parents who were very interested in how character ed was taught in a virtual world. Patti said, "It's very empowering for a 10-year-old to be able to explain their space to a group of adults." Two other cool elements: students participate in creating their own code of ethics, and Scott told me Dizzywood lets them look "under the hood" - learn about how Dizzywood's techies and graphic designers create its activities and habitat (something aspiring designers and software engineers would be fascinated with).

A few general virtual-world-industry themes I picked up on (signs of where things are headed): not making users download special software, but bringing virtual environments to them right through their Web browsers; whether kid virtual worlds should "grow up" with their users (as has happened with about 10% of Whyville.net's users, now in college); predictions of a merging of social networking and virtual worlds; your avatar going wherever you go on the Web (not locked into a single virtual world); and other signs of interest in or movement toward interoperability.

Going to this conference was a déjà vu kind of experience for me. Though it wasn't just about kid products and services, it felt a lot like Jupiter Media's "Digital Kids" conferences in the late-'90s: a very young industry trying to get a fix on metrics, markets, and competition folding in lots of start-ups, a handful of well-established B2B and B2C companies (Whyville.net, There.com, Second Life, Multiverse) and one or two old, giant media players (e.g., Disney) barreling ahead, seemingly announcing a new "world" about every six months (Pirates of the Caribbean, ClubPenguin acquisition, PixieHollow.com, forthcoming Cars world). Lots of numbers were tossed around (some admitted by the speaker to be educated estimates because research is limited): a current 100 million+ virtual-world residents worldwide, 75% between the ages of 8 and 24, with virtual worlds "about to collide" with the Web's 550 million social networkers worldwide, and a current $1.5 billion market in virtual goods (e.g., weapons in World of Warcraft, clothes and furniture in Second Life). One number that has been researched – by the conference's organizers – is that there are now more than 150 virtual worlds for youth 3-17 either available or in development (see this post).

Related links

"ClubPenguin's newest competition"

"Top 8 workarounds of kid virtual-world users"

"Here comes social gaming"

"Xbox Live with avatars"

"Benefits from having virtual selves"

Virtual World News

'Law 'n' order' in virtual worlds

It's a fledgling concept, but there are some interesting community-policing efforts afoot in virtual worlds such as Second Life, VZones, World of Warcraft, and mobile-phone-based Cellufun for mobile phone users, the Washington Post reports. For example, "in World of Warcraft, a popular online fantasy game, a character who is acting out runs the risk of being attacked by a group of self-appointed sheriffs. While the avatar doesn't face official penalties, the interference from other players can deter future crimes." In one of Worlds.com's worlds, users created a novel sort of virtual scarlet letter: "an animated bird that drops an unpleasant [virtual] substance on the heads of outlaws, known as 'griefers' in virtual-world lingo." There needs to be a flip side too, of course. I love the way London-based Childnet International put it recently: "Digital citizenship isn’t just about recognising and dealing with online hazards. It's about ... using your online presence to grow and shape your world in a safe, creative way, and inspiring others to do the same" (see this item) - an important focus for parenting and schooling going forward along the lines of "an ounce of prevention," "a stitch in time," etc., etc.... Speaking of which, virtual world safety expert Izzy Neis recently blogged about how a kids' world itself will be used to teach civility. She wrote that Dizzywood.com for kids 8-12 was "selected by the YMCA of San Francisco to enhance the youth program’s technology curriculum ... to reinforce its program emphasis on activities that promote values such as caring, honesty, respect and responsibility."

150+ virtual worlds for youth now

If anyone had doubts about rapid growth in the virtual-worlds sector of cyberspace, this should clear them up. There are now more than 150 virtual worlds - either open now or in development - targeting people 18 and under, up from around 100 just last April, according to Virtual Worlds Management (VWM). [The full list is at that link, though the definition of "virtual world" seems to be broad - I noticed one site that's largely avatar chat, not a whole "world."] "In all there are 95 youth worlds currently live. Another 68 are in concepting, development, or testing phases. Tweens' worlds (for ages 8-12) lead at 88 of the 150+, kids' (7 and under) come in second with 72, and teens' third with 60. Disney alone has nine in development, VWM reports. The New York Post cites eMarketer research showing that estimate that "more than half" of all online youth 3-17, or about 20 million young people "will visit virtual worlds by 2011, up from 34%, or 12 million, this year." Here's some analysis about the VWM report from its authors. I noted a comment in it about virtual worlds "aging with their users" from Craig Sherman, CEO of Gaia Online, a world targeting 13-to-18-year-olds. He told VWM that 30% of Gaia users were now 18+ and the site had, "accordingly, grown a little edgier" (inevitable, undoubtedly, but something for parents to be alert to, with kids and adults sharing an online community). It's logical that people wouldn't suddenly drop away from a site targeting youth just because they turned 18.

For a whole range of man-on-the-street views of virtual worlds, see this fun video from Global Kids in New York, or read coverage of a conference in youth learning in virtual worlds last fall from CNET. See also my recent item on ways kids have found to game the system in virtual worlds, sometimes for the purposes of cyberbullying.

ClubPenguin's newest competition

The New York Post calls it competition for Disney's kid virtual world, but it looks a whole lot more like competition for MGA Entertainment's Be-Bratz.com, the online world for Bratz doll fans, and Mattel's BarbieGirls.com (all three so very pink and purple - girls do like other colors!). The new kid on the block is ZwinkyCuties.com, now in beta testing and launching in mid-September, the Post reports. Interestingly, founder Barry Diller told the Post that his company, IAC, created ZwinkyCuties after "turning away thousands of users who attempted to register for [its two-year-old teen site] Zwinky.com, but didn't meet the site's age requirement of at least 13 years old." Like ClubPenguin, ZwinkyCuties will be subscription-based, not advertising-based (unlike at Zwinky.com, where teens users "purchase virtual currency on an a la carte basis using credit cards and PayPal accounts"). For insights into what sometimes goes on in kids' online worlds, see "Top 8 workarounds of kid virtual-world users."

Mental health care in virtual worlds

An academic paper out of Italy and the Netherlands describes "immersive e-therapy," a hybrid therapy in clinical psychology that occurs in both virtual-world and physical-world settings. Authors Alessandra Gorini, Andrea Gaggioli, and Cinzia Vigna "suggest that, compared with conventional telehealth applications such as emails, chat, and videoconferences, the interaction between real and 3-D virtual worlds may convey greater feelings of presence, facilitate the clinical communication process, positively influence group processes and cohesiveness in group-based therapies, and foster higher levels of interpersonal trust between therapists and patients." They also look at "challenges related to the potentially addictive nature of such virtual worlds" and "questions related to privacy and personal safety."

Top 8 workarounds of kid virtual-world users

It stands to reason that bullying happens in kids' virtual worlds (e.g., Club Penguin, Webkinz, Neopets, Nicktropolis, etc.), because, well, it happens in school, instant messaging, and social-networking sites. But I hadn't learned how it happened until Sharon Duke Estroff called me about it. The Atlanta-based parenting columnist, former elementary school teacher, kids' pop culture expert, author, and mother of four spent a couple of weeks in Club Penguin to learn what her eight-year-old son might experience there. She didn't like everything she saw.

Having occasionally watched my own son waddle around and play games in Club Penguin and thought it was pretty cute, I asked her why. Sharon - who will tell you that she's definitely not an overreactor where parenting's concerned - proceeded to tell me what she learned about digital pre-adolescent behavior in CP (and I have no doubt similar experiences are to be had in every other virtual playground on the Web).

Not that her CP time was all bad, of course, but there were some "Lord of the Flies moments" just like in real-life elementary school, and I thought you'd like to know what the virtual versions look like - techniques kids have developed for beating the system so they can move all that social behavior at school, good and bad, online. Simply put, they're "workarounds"- some but not all about meanness or bullying. So I boiled the behavioral parts of what Sharon told me down to a list of eight (note how sophisticated these workarounds' young creators are):

1. Beating the language filter. Putting consecutive words in separate message "bubbles," spaces between letters, creative capitalization and punctuation, etc. - whatever it takes to say what they like, including mean stuff and invitations to "visit me alone in my igloo."

2. Code lingo. Not just POS ("parent over shoulder") or ROTFL ("rolling on the floor laughing"), but text-formatting tricks that get around safe-language rules: e.g., if language filters don't allow numbers, kids share their ages by expressing them in dots. For example, they ask, "How many dots are you?" and get back: "I'm ........."

3. ID theft, kid-style. One of the cardinal rules of online safety is never to share your password because best friends sometimes become non-friends and can impersonate and embarrass you. Password-sharing, however, is rampant in kid virtual worlds - a popular way of offering and accepting best-friend status. It becomes a problem when your "best friend" logs on as your avatar and makes it break the rules so you get kicked out.

4. Stealing virtual possessions. Kids also use peers' passwords to steal their virtual clothes, furniture, and other in-world possessions so the victims have to start over or walk around as naked avatars and so the thief, succumbing to some sort of pre-adolescent digital version of "keeping up with the Joneses," can add to his/her in-world prestige (as well as the real-world kind - because, Sharon said, a lot of penguins know each other as humans at school too).

5. Abusing abuse reporting. The digital version of tattling: being mean by reporting avatars just so they get privileges taken away. "Kids can report other kids for all kinds of vague reasons, but they don't have to give a reason - all they have to do is press a button on the player card and the complaint goes straight to the monitor," Sharon said.

6. Using safety features to bully. Using blocking, ghosting, ignoring, and other in-world user-security tools to ostracize a kid or make it clear he's not a member of "the club" - whatever the club-of-the-moment is.

7. Digital "Spin the Bottle." Those pre-teen games for exploring dating and sexuality have moved into cyberspace. Kids manipulate their avatars and a virtual world's systems to create opportunities to explore virtual sexuality too. An example in Club Penguin: "Spin the Fish," only the fish doesn't spin; "you have to pretend it does," according to young CP lifestyles blogger Imatweetybrd, whose blog Sharon found. "You either say 'I'll spin!' or someone will tell you to spin. Then, most likely, you are just going to say 'spin,' then 'it landed on [the penguin's name that you like most]. At that point, you go up the person and say 'mwah.' Then your turn's over. Your penguin might like you back and ask you out or maybe you want to ask him out, then you guys can leave the game or whatever."

8. Kid avatars have cheats too. Just because the person behind the avatar is only nine years old certainly does not mean s/he's any less savvy about how to find cheats to beat the game and make coins or points a lot faster in order to have a bigger place of residence and more clothes, puffles, and furniture. The kid just types the name of an in-world game into a Web search engine and turns up hundreds of tips, or "cheats," as they're called - situation normal in the world of videogames (clearly also for people of younger and younger age, we now see).

My takeaways

First it should be acknowledged that there are plenty of positive and just plain fun things about Club Penguin too (check out its kid philanthropy feature). It's possible the average child user (probably 7-10 - not teen hackers like Mike 92 in Related links below) could experience or use one or two of the above workarounds, but not likely all, unless he or she is looking for trouble, feeling mean, or really into power in a social sort of way. Putting all the workarounds together here is designed only to help parents ask intelligent questions.

My 11-year-old was an avid CP user for a few weeks last year, but he never noticed any of the above except a few cheats (penguins a little too good at some games) and occasional meanness - trigger-happy abuse reporters or safety-feature abusers - and none of it ruined his fun in CP, but CP also wasn't the all of his entertainment or social life (balanced lives do help us not take certain things too seriously). The workarounds only confirm for me that, wherever kids are online, alertness and critical thinking are needed on the part of children as well as parents. Club Penguin and other kid virtual worlds are not babysitters! But they are great social-networking training for both participants and parents. They offer many teachable moments for learning all kinds of things: e.g., how to treat others online as well as offline, how to be a good citizen and friend, how to detect social and commercial manipulation, how to deal with peer pressure and group think, and even how to be a leader.

Readers, we'd love to hear about your children's virtual-world experiences in the ConnectSafely.org forum. Email's ok too, via anne@netfamilynews.org.

Related links

Visual aids: "Club Penguin Robbery" video at YouTube in which director/producer/penguin Mike 92 robs Club Penguin's bank and gets his just desserts (here's his cheats site). I'm guessing Mike is a teenager who uses CP as a hacking and video-producing creative outlet (hacking isn't necessarily illegal or malicious). Another, more bird's-eye view of cheating the systems is "How to move peoples stuff on Club Penguin."

Numbers: "As of last month [4/08], more than 100 new virtual worlds had started up or were in development," the New York Times reports. "Many sites such as Empire of Sports, Planet Cazmo and Xivio are aimed at so-called tweens, ages 8 to 12.... This year, more than 12 million children nationwide under the age of 18 will visit at least one of these sites, and that number will grow to 20 million by 2011," the Times adds, citing eMarketer research.

For some nearly original digital kid anthropology research, surf around the Club Penguin Coolers blog.

Sharon Duke Estroff's bio Web site

Good for dinnertable discussion: "How social influencing works"

ConnectSafely.org's Safety Tips & Advice page

Griefers: Gamer worlds' bullies

Griefers aren't new to gaming communities, but they're apparently becoming a fixture in multiplayer online games too - games such as World of Warcraft, RuneScape and Everquest, Reuters reports. "Unlike traditional Internet bullies who work through instant messages and cell phones, griefers lurk on online multi-player videogames, harassing their victim by bullying, tormenting or thwarting other players in the game," according to Reuters. For help on how to deal with this, see "10 Tips for Dealing with Griefers" at Microsoft.com, "Dealing with Griefers in Second Life" at MindSigh.com, and in a World of Warcraft forum, "Nazsh's Guide to Dealing with Griefers." See also "Support for young videogamers."