The Meta-Teen: making the metaverse child safe

Grooming, cyberbullying and suicide ideation are just some of the dangers faced by children on the metaverse, a two or three-dimensional online environment in which users interact with each other in virtual spaces. Now new research from the University of East London (UEL) and Middlesex University has provided a better understanding of those dangers, potentially necessitating a re-evaluation of existing child safeguarding strategies. 

The project, led by UEL’s Professor Julia Davidson OBE and Dr Elena Martellozzo from Middlesex University, examined children's perceptions and feelings about online safety within the 2D and 3D metaverse. The research team engaged with eleven young people, aged between 15 and 18, in an immersive two-hour experience. Placing children at the core of their work, the team prioritised hearing directly from them about their experiences, desires, and fears. 

Children’s online experiences 

Before immersing themselves in the 3D metaverse, the children were questioned about their prior experiences. They all said they enjoyed online gaming, citing the thrill and the challenge of the games, They also valued the expansive environments typical in such games, seeing it as a virtual "escape" from everyday life. Interestingly, they revealed a lack of interest in playing online 2D metaverse games for socialising and meeting new people. Instead, they saw them as a means of sustaining existing relationships with friends and family. 

Asked about the least liked aspects of such environments, the children’s predominant concerns revolved around the behaviour of other online players. They said they had encountered racism, homophobia, and sexual harassment, either directed at them personally or at others. This aligns with existing research indicating that adolescents are more susceptible to becoming targets of online hate crimes than adults and are more likely to report such incidents. 

Despite expressing concern about online hate crimes, the participants did not consider them a significant risk. Instead, they perceived grooming and doxing as the most significant threats. Most participants believed that it was impossible to trust someone online who they did not know in person, emphasising the importance of offline connections in establishing trust. But the children acknowledged that increased online communication with unknown individuals made them more likely to trust them, a behaviour likely to raise fears about young people’s susceptibility to sustained efforts at grooming.

Furthermore, the children acknowledged playing online games with strangers, despite recognising the associated risks. Approximately 33 per cent of participants admitted to speaking to people they do not know in chat apps, meaning they had extended their online interactions into more private and encrypted spaces using personal devices. 66 per cent reported being asked to send an image of themselves to a stranger. Despite these encounters, all participants claimed to know how and when to report other users, with 88 per cent stating that they had filed reports against other online users. 

Children's Experiences in the 3D metaverse 

After engaging in the Virtual Reality (VR) 3D metaverse, where they were able to explore independently or with other participants, the children were asked a series of questions about their experiences. All the research subjects said they enjoyed the experience, which they viewed as positive. Upon further probing, the children acknowledged experiencing reality confusion and sometimes feeling overwhelmed due to the immersive nature of the VR environment. 

When asked whether they felt safe, 73 per cent of the participants stated that they did, with 46 per cent saying this was due to being with others that they knew, and being in an offline environment in which they felt safe. One participant, a boy of 14, said, 

“I felt safe mostly because the people in the game I had already met in real life. If I was playing with strangers I would have felt differently and most likely been quite anxious and scared.” 

When asked whether the VR environment felt like a safe space, 55 per cent of participants were unsure, saying they were worried by the possibility of engaging with people they do not know, and 54 per cent said knowing other people’s true offline identities was important. 

None of the participants considered the 3D metaverse to be a safe space for children. Their apprehensions centred around the potential exposure of children to violent content, the risk of desensitisation, and the fear that this environment could foster online disinhibition, which refers to the tendency of individuals to detach a certain degree of responsibility from their online actions. 

Despite these views, 73 per cent of the participants wanted to spend more time inside the metaverse, and 64 per cent wanted to own a headset, used in 3D environments, as they was more exciting than 2D metaverse games. This may suggest that their perceived concerns were mitigated by their enjoyment of the virtual environment. 

When asked what they thought was needed for children to feel safe in the 3D metaverse, the children felt there needed to be greater levels of moderation and increased safety provisions, such as restrictions regarding who children can and cannot speak to. 

The National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online, a Bristol University-led research programme introduced to combat online harms, funded the research. Support was also provided by Kabuni, a provider of immersive learning and its president of research and safety, Nina Jane Patel, and the online safety charity, Childnet. 

Read this blog for parental guidance on children in the metaverse.