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A German initiative titled "Watch What Your Child Does With the Media" has warned that online games, which include a chat function, are too risky for youngsters.
The initiative explained that analog games such as card and board games are more suitable for youngsters, and instead children can enjoy online games with parents or relatives, or choose games that feature a supervised chat function.
Accompany children
German experts advised that parents should accompany their children when using online games, and that they should test the games themselves or play and play with them, and in this way they can show interest and share common experiences with their children, which enhances the exchange of trust around the games.
Erin Schulz, a media coach for the German initiative, pointed out that children should be made aware of the dangers that they may be exposed to while enjoying online games, such as propaganda, extremist hate speech, fake news and inhuman ideologies, given that some players use the chat function in games to express their ideological point of view towards world and spread hate speech.
In addition to text and images, such messages can be disseminated in online games in an indirect way, when games highlight and glorify violence against minorities, and often the elements in existing games are changed so that they are admired by many children and young people.
Schultz emphasized that game fans can design the profile names and attributes of game characters or entire game worlds, so that extremist views, codes that violate laws, or hate messages can be broadcast among humans.
Usually youngsters do not understand the nature of these risks, since they do not have a critical evaluation of the gaming world, so parents should prepare them for such an experience and train them to ask questions about the content, and it is always better to choose age-appropriate contents with security and privacy settings activated, in addition to the need to monitor Parents of their children closely.