Apps

What Parents Need to Know

Child predators… Sex rooms… Gang rape? These have been some of the terrifying reports coming from parents about one of the most popular games among children — Roblox. Surely not, this is Digital Lego, to some extent, right?

63%, more than half, of Roblox users are under the age of 16, 25% are under the age of 9, and 55% of children aged 9-12 in the USA play Roblox each week. Clearly, Roblox is a force to be reckoned with. It’s a pretty amazing game… but only if you know how to use it.

So how we do allow our children to excel and explore Roblox, but also keep them safe from the very-real dangers online? Well, first, you have to know what Roblox is and how it works.

What is Roblox

First things first — Roblox isn’t necessarily a video game. Rather it’s a platform that hosts games — over 40 million games to be exact. More significantly, all the games are created by users. It was released back in 2006 to create a space where people can come play games, build games, and connect with friends. 

Like Minecraft, users create an avatar and enter an immersive multi-player world where they can explore and interact with other users. It’s become the go-to after-school hang-out spot for a lot of children and teens who join their friends in this digital world and play games together.

While Roblox is entirely free to download and play, it can be quite limiting unless you have Robux, the in-game purchased currency. By loading real money onto your account, you can use these Robux to buy accessories, clothes, and gear for your avatar, special abilities, bonus in-game content, as well as access to some user-created games.

This opportunity to spend also comes with the opportunity to make money. You can either trade your Robux or, if you create your game and make it has a Robux entrance fee, you can earn money from users playing your game. Then you can trade your Robux for real bucks.

Most popular games on Roblox at the moment:

• Adopt Me!: In a Sims-like world, you can live as an adoptive parent or an adopted child, taking care of everyday needs — additionally, the new collectable pets have made it incredibly popular
• Royale High: Experience high school as a supernatural noble where you have to balance your social life and your grades.
• Brookhaven RP: A townscape where users can play any role they like and create a life for themselves with their own house and their own car.
• MeepCity: Build and manage your own estate, basically a virtual business like a pizza place, school, or dance club, where other users can spend Robux to enjoy your estate.
• Tower of Hell: This obstacle course, or “obby” as they’re known in Roblox, is known as one of the most challenging games in Roblox where you have to make your way up a challenging tower.

But what can be Roblox’s most popular game can also be its most dangerous.

Child predators on Roblox

As unfortunate as it is — where there are children, there are also child predators. What is the ultimate playground for children on one side also has a dark underbelly where sexual predators find their prey on the other.

There have been multiple reports around the world of children being targeted by predators and with inappropriate content around the world. One such report was of a 12-year-old being sent explicit messages and threatened outside of the game. Others include children stumbling into sex rooms, getting lured and locked inside rooms, being virtually gang raped, getting contacted by strangers, and herded onto other, more dangerous, apps and sites, and even kidnapping in real life.

The problem is that Roblox is essentially an open world — and most children are sent out into this world, free to explore and lacking the skills needed to stay safe, as they would need in the real world. If anything, it’s even more important online – It can take as little as two minutes for children to be approached online by a predator.

You might be thinking — when a child gets locked in a room with a predator, can’t they just turn it off, it’s not real? And yes, they can turn it off. But with the blending of our digital and IRL identities, especially with teens and children, they struggle to separate the fact that it is happening to their avatar, not to them — they still feel the emotional trauma from these situations.

What is Roblox doing about the situation?

Well, Roblox has responded to these reports by actively trying to remove dangers for children on their platform. But despite their best efforts — you cut off one head and ten grow back. Predators are finding more and more loopholes, and even if you report these tragic events to officials, they are so hard to trace that they just disappear and move on.

That’s why the best thing we can do as parents, teachers, and protectors of this young generation is to equip them with the skills to avoid, block, and report this behavior themselves so that they know what to do if a situation like this arises.

Other dangers for children on Roblox

One of the main problems that present serious dangers for children on Roblox is the chat feature. Like most multiplayer online games, you can chat with other users — friends, friends of friends, or complete strangers, depending on your chat settings.

By allowing communication with strangers, and even friends, online, you’re essentially opening a doorway for them to enter your home, your safe space. This unlocks an entirely new space for dangers in online games:

• Exposure to inappropriate content: Despite Roblox’s chat filters, users still find ways to send explicit and inappropriate content through the chat filter, as well as behave inappropriately within the games themselves.
• Information sharing: Children can be coerced to share private and personal information with strangers which could put their safety at risk.
• Cyberbullying: Even among friends, children are faced with an overwhelming amount of cyberbullying through Roblox which infiltrates their social life IRL.
• “ODers”: Also known as “online daters,” Roblox is flooded with users who use the platform entirely as an online dating app, forming digital relationships which can get quite explicit for children to stumble upon — if children aren’t honest about their age, they can also easily find themselves in one of these relationships if they’re not careful.
• Robux: As with most things, currency is the driving force of Roblox, and children can firstly feel pressured to spend their own money to gain more Robux or be enticed to do certain things in exchange for Robux.

Roblox privacy settings and parental controls

So, with all these dangers creeping around, what controls has Roblox put in place to combat them?

• Chat and content filters: Roblox has built-on AI filters that prescreen the chat and content to ensure there isn’t any inappropriate or explicit content.
• Age restriction: While there is no official age restriction or age verification system, as a parent, you can set their age on the app where children under 13 have stricter chat filters, like blocking phone numbers that are sent in the chat.
• Friend and chat settings: You can restrict your friend list by following only those who you know and limiting who can contact you — friends, friends of friends, or strangers.
• Activity history: You can view chat histories, recent purchases or trades, friends/followers, creations, and recently play games.
• Parental PIN: Parents can set a PIN that prevents children from changing the settings parents have put in place for safety.

Are these enough to make Roblox a safe and fun place for all? Clearly not. Children are very determined, resourceful, and probably know the game a lot better than you. If they really want to, nothing is stopping them from getting around any safety restriction you put on them. So what can you really do to protect your child on Roblox?

Tips for parents to keep their children safe on Roblox

The one thing you should avoid is policing. No matter how many passwords, restrictions, or outright bans, children will always find a way through a back door. The best thing that you can do to protect your children — have an open and trusting child-parent relationship.

What’s worse than your child experiencing one of these traumatic events is them experiencing it and not telling you. Most children are afraid to tell their parents when something bad happens. They fear getting into trouble, getting punished, or worse, facing disappointment and shame. You want your child to feel as if they can trust that you will respond in the way that they need you to respond, not the way you want to.

Banning the game also doesn’t help them in the long run. It means that they never learn these essential skills they need to avoid situations like this in the future, in the real world where they can’t just turn it off and you’re not there to protect them. Rather, teaching them how to deal with these situations empowers them and equips them with everything they need to be smart, safe, and explore online, not just on Roblox.

Teach them how to:

• Block strangers
• Maintain safe privacy settings
• Report inappropriate content
• Avoid high-risk situations
• Speak up when something goes wrong

Conclusion

You can also see Roblox as an opportunity for your child to excel online. It’s an incredible place to develop digital skills such as coding, game-building, and business. Take Roblox and turn it into a positive and productive form of play — you never know, may you have a coding protogé on your hands.

“Roblox can be amazing. But like anything online, it also has adults wandering around exercising their voyeurism or fetish or having fun. It’s just that kids don’t fully understand this,” says Dean McCoubrey, MySociaLife founder.

While Roblox definitely presents real and harmful dangers to your children, if you set it up correctly, equip your children with the skills they need, and encourage them to explore their online talents, Roblox can be a pretty incredible place for children and teens online.

Want to find other ways your child can explore and excel online while being safe and smart? Check out what MySociaLife has to offer you, your child, and your school.

– Written by Havana Dauncey

New App Alert! BeReal is currently the fastest-growing app on both the charts and among teens. So what does this mean for us? Well, whether you’re a parent, teacher, or principal, you’re going to need the 411 on the latest social media app spreading like wildfire among teens and be aware of any potential dangers that might arise for your children and students

So what is BeReal, is it so different from other social media platforms as the creators claim, and why is it catching millions of teens’ attention all over the world?

Here’s your ultimate BeReal review and guide for parents, principals, and teachers — let’s dive in!

What is BeReal?

BeReal co-founder, Alexis Barreyat’s vision for the app was to create a space where people could foster genuine interactions online. And, unlike other social apps, connect with friends and family online.

Despite hitting the market back in 2020, BeReal only started to pick up some traction at the beginning of 2022. Now it’s heading into hyperdrive with a 29,200% increase in daily active users since 2021 with 2.93 million active users.

Declared GenZ’s favorite social media app, but also the most boring (in a good way), BeReal indicates that maybe teens are looking for a new and authentic digital social experience. They’re tired of the sensationalized and toxic environment found in other social apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.

How does BeReal work?

Unlike other social platforms, BeReal has a rather restricted and unique structure. It all starts with a notification saying, “It’s time to BeReal”

At a random time each day, changing one day to the next, everyone in the same timezone receives a notification that it’s time to be real. When this happens, users have 2 minutes to take a photo of what they are doing in that instant — both back and front camera. All photos are unfiltered, unedited, and unscripted.

Within the 2 minutes, you can retake the photo as many times as you’d like. Though if you miss the 2-minute timer or you’re perhaps not near your phone or your phone is switched off, then your BeReal will be tagged as late for everyone to see. Your friends can also see how many times you retook your photo.

You can choose to publish your BeReal privately, for only your friends, or publicly for all BeReal users around the world to see. Only once you’ve published your BeReal for the day are you able to see the other on-the-spot selfies on both your private and public feeds. You can also react to your friends’ BeReals with a comment or a ‘RealMoji’ which is basically you taking a selfie with a face to match an emoji.

You can delete your BeReal, but only once a day. And before you do, you have to fill out a form specifying your reason with options ranging from “I don’t like my BeReal” to “Inappropriate content.” You also get a neat photo album of all your BeReals to reminisce — visible to only you.

BeReal has been carefully crafted to avoid the pitfalls of other social media apps that make them so dangerous and toxic to teens and even adults. So how exactly is BeReal so different from the rest? Why are teens starting to gravitate towards it and away from the other social apps?

What makes BeReal different?

• It’s friends, not followers: Instead of having different numbers for your followers and following, an easy point of comparison for teens, BeReal takes an approach similar to Facebook where you add friends with a mutual friend request.
• Follower count or the number of likes doesn’t matter: Teens can’t spend hours comparing and obsessing over followers and likes if both them and nobody else can see them — in fact, teens are preferring smaller and more exclusive friend circles on BeReal
• No more filters, edited images, or videos: Because your BeReal has to be taken on the spot through the BeReal app, it’s practically impossible to post anything that has been filtered or edited, only your true and authentic self.
• Significant social pressure to play by the rules: Even if you post 5 minutes late, your friends will notice, and a lot of teens are criticizing those late posters, claiming they aren’t ‘being real.’
• Encouragement from peers to be authentic and vulnerable: Different from the hyper-edited and glamourized Instagram, teens on BeReal celebrate seeing the real and genuine you — the more honest, the better.
• Little to no room to engage with strangers: Because there’s no private messaging function, as long as your account is private, there aren’t many ways that strangers can contact you or you could accidentally contact strangers.
• You can’t get sucked in for hours: BeReal happens only once a day, and after 10 minutes of scrolling through your friends’ posts until you’re bored, there’s not much more you can do — there’s no algorithm designed to suck you in for hours at a time.

What are the privacy settings?

In the spirit of ‘being real,’ BeReal doesn’t have many privacy settings or parental controls:

• Private account: When you create your BeReal account, it’s automatically private and ensures that only your chosen friends can see your content.
• Location: All your BeReals are automatically geotagged, which means that your friends (and strangers, if your post is on the Discover Page) can see the exact location of your BeReal the second you take it — you have to manually go switch off the location setting.
• Reporting: You can report any content that you find inappropriate.
• 13+ age restriction: BeReal asks each user their year of birth when signing up to ensure they are above the age restriction, but this is easily thwarted by determined tweens and children.

What are the potential dangers?

While BeReal’s privacy settings and parental controls are very limited compared to other social apps, maybe it’s because it’s designed in a way that you don’t need endless measures to protect teens from harm. But no app is completely innocent — let’s find out what dangers lie in the BeReal app for teens.

• Public posts: If your teen decides to post publicly on the Discover Page, anyone around the world can see whatever content they post.
• Information sharing: Not only is your location dangerous to share, but by posting every day, people may start to know your routine, like where you are at certain times during the day.
• Sharing your surroundings: Because BeReal uses both the front and back camera, if you aren’t very aware of your surroundings, you may share something that you don’t want others to see.
• Inappropriate content: Despite BeReal’s trusted content filter and reporting feature, there’s still a chance that inappropriate content could slip through.
• Phone attachment: Teens want to be ready for when it’s time to BeReal with the fear of being late, meaning they might want their phones on them at all times.
• Social implications: If a teen’s friend request isn’t accepted or they see that all their friends are together by the BeReal or location, and they weren’t invited, this could hurt their social identity.

BeReal review: Our final verdict for teens

BeReal has certainly given a convincing solution for a healthy and safe social media platform for teens to enjoy and explore. But that doesn’t mean that it’s immune to dangers on the internet.

We love the intention behind BeReal — a response to the current toxicity out there on social media with the aim of restoring social media’s fun, safe, and social environment. And we believe they did a pretty good job. However, it’s our responsibility as parents, teachers, and principals to guide teens to avoid any potential dangers and ensure it remains a fun, safe, and social environment for everyone.

Here’s what you can do:

• Talk to teens about the importance of remaining private online and the dangers of posting publicly.
• Teach them how to discern which friends to include in their exclusive circle.
• Ensure their location is switched off.
• Show them how to report any content they find inappropriate.
• Advise teens to be aware of their surroundings
• Remind them that BeReal is still just a social media app, it’s not the end of the world if they post late, it does not define their social identity, and connecting with friends IRL is still so much better.

BeReal is still considerably new. So while it’s currently one of the better social media apps for teens, it’s important to keep a close eye on how it grows and develops. It’s hard to say exactly how it will affect teens in the long run. But we hope that BeReal continues to be real itself and remains a fun, safe, and social space for teens online. Need help guiding teens on how to be safer and smarter online? Check out MySociaLife’s world-class programs on digital citizenship, media literacy, and online safety for students, parents, teachers, and counselors.

[Written by Havana Dauncey]

Unpopular opinion among parents, teachers, and professionals in the digital safety industry: TikTok isn’t all that bad for teens.

Since TikTok first blew up during the pandemic, completely consuming teens, pre-teens, and even children and adults alike, parents, teachers, and the digital safety industry have set off the alarm bells. They’ve headed a pretty firm warning about the effects of TikTok and social media and the reasons why it’s not safe for teens. 

Maybe they have point — TikTok has been shown to negatively affect adolescents’ mental health. But maybe there’s more beneath TikTok’s surface that parents aren’t willing to explore. Well, teens are! And we’re here to guide the way for teens to explore and excel online.

5 ways teens can use TikTok for good:

Here are 5 fun, productive, and positive ways teens can use TikTok:

1. Find a creative outlet

TikTok was originally created for users to make fun, interesting, and creative videos. While it’s become distorted since then, the potential for TikTok to be used as it was originally intended remains. Similar to how Instagram promotes amazing photography, TikTok presents the perfect playground for those interested in videography to play, create, explore, and excel.

Some of the videos on TikTok are crazy impressive and require insane talent. There’s a corner of TikTok that’s positively promoting this kind of content that encourages creativity and develops teens’ skills. And it’s not limited to videography. Teens are showcasing their singing, art, design, musical instruments, make-up art, filmmaking, cake decorating and so much more. TikTok has become a hub for talented teens to explore and share their passions with the world.

One teen with some serious talent taking advantage of TikTok’s platform is Maya (@mayas_artwork). She uses TikTok to post her hyper-realistic artwork of adorable animals, tranquil bouquets, and even some pop culture icons from the show Stranger Things. She even found a way to make some money through commissions. Now that’s a smart teen using TikTok to do good things.

2. Start your own business

Many teens and young adults are taking their talents and passions and turning them into profits and careers using TikTok. And watching others fulfil their dreams on TikTok is inspiring even more teens to do the same.

With its massive audience and impressive engagement, TikTok has become the center of social media marketing. Teens are seeing this potential and are using TikTok to promote their business, generate leads, and make sales. This not only sets them up for the next stage in their life but teaches them invaluable life skills about business, growth, hard work, and success.

Gen Z digital creator, Joshua Heldsinger, is doing just this! He says, “Social media has always been a marketing tool. It’s not a place to fool around… it’s a place where you can build your brand. With the power of your phone and internet connection, you can travel the world and do what you want!” Click here to see how he uses TikTok to build his brand in a creative and engaging way.

3. Learn how to market other businesses

TikTok is no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity for any business looking to thrive. Many businesses from every industry, big or small, are jumping on the bandwagon. Many haven’t yet mastered the art of TikTok… but many teens have. Teens have a deep understanding of TikTok’s nuance and can potentially take what they’ve learned from hours of scrolling and engaging with the content and turn it into something productive and positive.

Teens are starting digital marketing agencies where they take on the marketing of businesses and help them boom on TikTok. With so many businesses trying to explore the wonderful world of TikTok, there’s a huge demand for experts to guide the way. And many teens are perfect for the job!

Kelsie (@sociallykels) is a 23-year-old social media marketer with over 350k followers on TikTok. She’s taken what she’s learned from being a user of social media and turned it into a thriving business as a social media marketer and content creator!

4. Gain awareness of the world

Teens get exposed to a wide range of content on TikTok — the good and the bad. Social media, especially TikTok, has been instrumental in the spreading of awareness of important topics such as mental health, sexuality, equality, racism, disabilities, and more — all from people having a platform to share their stories first-hand.

This not only exposes teens to perspectives they never would have encountered before but can be incredibly powerful at encouraging empathy. Teens learn to empathize with people they’ve never met. This teaches them important life skills, as well as educates them on important world issues.

Many young adults are stepping forward to share their stories with the world. One such young TikToker is Chloé Hayden (@chloeshayden) who uses her platform to share her experience with autism and ADHD. She not only helps with destigmatization but helps both teens and adults gain awareness about autism and ADHD.

5. Have a good laugh

What draws over 1 billion users to TikTok monthly? Most people are just looking for a quick escape and a good laugh to bring some brightness to their day in a world that can sometimes be a bit too intense. Relying on TikTok for a source of escape can be a slippery slope — we’ve all seen how quickly 5 minutes can slip into 5 hours in the TikTok blackhole.

But with some screentime limits and a carefully curated feed, teens can still get some great entertainment often with content that’s educational, clever, or simply just adorable. Watching cute animal videos has even been proven to have some real positive effects on the brain and emotions.

Khaby Lame (@khaby.lame) has officially taken the top spot with the most followers on TikTok. How did he do this? Entertain the masses with his hilarious yet simple videos without even saying a word. His bio says it all — “If u wanna laugh u r in the right place.” This 22-year-old Senegalese sensation knows what people want and knows how to give it to them.

TikTok’s nature does raise some valid concerns for parents — TikTok addiction, cyberbullying, the effects of the Ukraine War on TikTok, the sexualization of teens, the impact on teens’ mental health, and the viral trend to go viral at all costs. But this doesn’t mean that this is all TikTok can be. If you teach your children good and healthy social media habits, like curating feeds with good content, screentime limits, reporting inappropriate content, good privacy setting practices, critical thinking, and the importance of fact-checking, TikTok can hold a world of opportunities for your teen to grow, explore, and excel online.

Learn more on our website about how we, at MySociaLife, teach and encourage teens and pre-teens to make the digital world their own, being safer and smarter online.

[Article written by Havana Dauncey]

We saw something today that just blew us away at MySociaLife. Beautifully clever and so well-timed for the world our kids find ourselves in. Considering pre-teens and teens still LOVE Minecraft.

In one sentence: “Players can truly build whatever they imagine in Minecraft, and now, this extends to their visions for world peace.” Yesterday, Microsoft launched an immersive Minecraft learning experience at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. 

“The ‘Active Citizen‘ project educates young people about Nobel Peace Prize laureates past and present and fosters an understanding of the skills needed to drive positive change in the world. “Active Citizen” is now available for millions of learners around the world in the Minecraft Education Edition. Dignitaries from around the world including His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Wanjira Mathai, Chairperson of the Wangari Maathai Foundation, and Vidar Helgesen, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation, have supported and participated in this groundbreaking project.”
Just so smart – on so many levels.

Watch the trailer here:

Our kids need this type of exposure early. We teach them and there isn’t enough of these tools to support this important work that can last a lifetime. Well done Microsoft.

Need a digital citizenship program for your schools? Check out our student programs at MySociaLife!