Is Roblox OK for a 7yo?

February 16, 2023 8:53 AM

My 7yo son is interested in Roblox. I'm concerned about the social-media elements of the game.

I barely even understood WTF Roblox was until I did a little research recently; I think I get it now: it's partly a platform for people to make and play mini-games made by other users, and partly a "social-media-lite" platform, as there's lots of interaction between players.

More and more, I've come to believe that social media is more of an ill than a good; my life is certainly better without it. But he's a Digital Native, and it's not like online interaction is going away. Still, I'm very wary of him participating in this or any online platform.

My son is a smart, reasonably savvy 7yo, but, y'know, he's still seven years old, so he doesn't really understand such things. He's good at and interested in video games (Minecraft, Lego games, other fairly mild fare like Ratchet and Clank and Tearaway [which is pretty cool, I must say]). He's specifically interested in Roblox because it's new and weird, and because some of his friends play it. Specifically, and this is an important point, his current best friend will be moving to another country in just a few weeks, and he wants to use Roblox (and maybe Minecraft) to keep in touch with her. So far in his video-gaming life, he has never used online or multiplayer mode in any game. He's only ever played these games by himself or with me.

I know that Roblox has parental controls, but my research suggested that those controls are not especially robust. Does anyone know anything about this? I have no experience at all with parental controls on video games.

In this situation, would you let (or have you let) your similar-age child use Roblox? Why or why not? If you have done this, what were the good and bad parts of your (and your kid's) experience? Similarly, if you first granted, then withdrew, your kid's access to Roblox (or other multiplayer, internet-based games), what were your reasons for doing that?

Thank you!

posted by Dr. Wu to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

In the past we granted and then withdrew our kid's access to Roblox. The main reasons were that they were: A. playing games that were inane, repetitive, and addictive with no redeeming value. and B. encountering games with very age-inappropriate adult music. There were some fun games on there, and I know many kids have great experiences with it - but the risk/reward was just not worth it for us.
posted by gnutron at 9:01 AM on February 16, 2023

Seven is definitely young for any online game. I don't have children but I am a professional game developer, and I would personally only let a child that young play an online game if I was actively watching them do it the whole time. Or, maybe you can turn off all chat and ability to purchase things and try to make sure your child only plays games with their remote friend. Roblox has pretty advanced parental controls, but the default settings are not safe for the average 7 year old and they could easily be exposed to content and people that could cause issues
posted by JZig at 9:06 AM on February 16, 2023

If they're playing on a private Minecraft server that they just share between them, it won't be a "social" experience in the same way Roblox is, just for the record - they can definitely enjoy Minecraft as a two-player game.
posted by sagc at 9:08 AM on February 16, 2023

Roblox has a history of being terrible to children designing games on their platform, so there’s that to consider if your 7yo might want to create as well as consume.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:13 AM on February 16, 2023

My experience with my child playing Roblox is mostly negative. My daughter gets super engaged while she's playing, but she's often in a bad mood when she stops. I put this down to dark patterns that leave you always on the edge of closure without ever reaching closure. They make you feel like if you just play one more time you'll get it, but you never do. That's how game designers maximize playing time, but it's terrible for the kids.

I'd suggest guiding your kid elsewhere before they get started.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 9:20 AM on February 16, 2023

Roblox as a company makes vast tracts of money by manipulating and extracting cash from children who are not well monitored by their parents. I would never let my kids use it. A private Minecraft server or other multi-player game that does not have gamified in-app purchases is going to be vastly safer and healthier.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:21 AM on February 16, 2023

My 14yr old is on Roblox, but i would not have let him at age 7. I am not happy with it even now but he is 14.
Main reason is the chat function, plus the in App purchases. But even without, i would not think it suits for a 7yr old.
They could play together on a private Minecraft server instead.
posted by 15L06 at 9:29 AM on February 16, 2023

Nthing the "Roblox is bad" pile on. My kid, at 7, was curious because all his friends were into it. But after some investigation it was clearly terrible for a lot of the reasons the commenters above have mentioned. However, I get the desire of your kid to connect with their friend so you'll have to balance that with the dumpster fire that is Roblox. My vote would be private Minecraft server.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:32 AM on February 16, 2023

My kids like Roblox, though they are starting to age out of it at 9 & 11. As long as you set up parental controls restrictively, I think it's fine. I also find games like Adopt Me, fashion show, and the animal trading one really cute and I'm pretty jealous they get that and I got crappy Dragon Warrior. Piggy and Tower of Hell are less cute, but still not too bad either, and kind of fun. I think Roblox is just a video game, with all the downsides (not moving off the couch for 8 hours, mainly play by yourself) of any other video games.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:38 AM on February 16, 2023

I share the reservations about Roblox on a basic level, but when our kid was little, let them play anyway around age 7/8, after coaching about how in-app purchases are not cool, talking to strangers is not cool, etc. And even then, only monitored. It's been a while, but I believe you can tweak their settings to prohibit unknown people from chatting.

That mitigated the downsides enough that our kid being included (SO MANY KIDS they go to school with will play Roblox) made it worth it. Our kid already closes their eyes when a ball is thrown to them, is Hungarian-American, from a family of weird atheist pinkos, and is pretty awkward. Letting them dink around on Roblox like the other kids do seemed like a chance to be in the norm on one thing.

Roblox is not typically a cross you'd have to bear for long, as kids tend to rapidly age out of it and into more serious focus on Minecraft, Terraria, etc. in pretty short order. I don't know many kids who kept their interest for much more than a year.

And to be frank, having to brief your kids on exploitative online marketing and stranger danger, plus having to keep track of what they are doing and who they are communicating with online is pretty much just something you have to do as a parent in 2023, no matter which games you approve or don't.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:39 AM on February 16, 2023

In addition to the very good People Make Games investigation that GenjiandProust linked to, there was a BBC Radio 4 program featuring the parents of a kid who was groomed by a predator they met in Roblox. Roblox is the one aimed-at-kids game that is a hard no from me, and I am very pro-kids-playing-videogames.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:05 AM on February 16, 2023

My child experienced a group of characters dressed as Nazis coming into a Roblox restaurant simulation game and expressing anti-Semetic hate speech. He was old enough to recognize it for what it was, but I wouldn't want a seven year old to experience that.
posted by xo at 10:27 AM on February 16, 2023

Yeah I would encourage minecraft. It has extensive single player options, and you can control playing with others to be the way you the parent set it up.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 11:06 AM on February 16, 2023

Thanks, everyone. This is very eye-opening and informative. I knew next to nothing about Roblox, and this will help my wife and me make our decision.

Not to stanch the conversation! If others have further opinions on this subject, I'd love to hear them. Thank you all again.
posted by Dr. Wu at 11:11 AM on February 16, 2023

Setting parental controls on Roblox

-disable or limit chat or messaging
-restrict access to a curated list of age-appropriate games
-set a monthly limit on how much money, if any, the child can spend on Roblox’s in-game currency
-enable an account PIN which requires a 4-digit code to make any changes to settings

We had zero in-game spending, limited chat/messaging to an approved list, to be on which our kid had to know them in the real world and have us add them, and restricted the games to an age level we specified.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:42 AM on February 16, 2023

This recent article about sketchy user-created games with low age ratings is also worth a read.
posted by slightlybewildered at 12:14 PM on February 16, 2023

As far as socializing via video games, a private Minecraft server would be an amazing way to facilitate this.

And if your kid was interested in the game-making part of Roblox, or wanting to dip their toes into coding, Scratch is still a great way to do this.
posted by xedrik at 3:49 PM on February 16, 2023

xedrik beat me to it -- I was going to recommend Scratch.
posted by humbug at 7:59 AM on February 17, 2023