Safer Internet Day 2022: How to keep your child safe in the metaverse

Every generation comes with its own monster to slay and a new world to navigate. Today, that new space is known as the metaverse; a crush of virtual reality, augmented reality and interactive chat areas that careen into a ravine of sensory information. This is your child’s world; you will never know enough about it to monitor and outwit the young minds that live in this space. The only thing you can do, is make it a safer habitat.

A recent incident highlights the need for greater digital security measures in this space. On November 26, a Meta (formerly Facebook) user complained about being molested on Horizon Worlds, Meta’s virtual reality social media platform.

Vivek Sharma, the vice president of the platform, called the incident “absolutely unfortunate”, and told the tech magazine ‘The Verge’, “That’s good feedback still for us because I want to make [the blocking feature] trivially easy and findable.”

So on Safer Internet Day, which is celebrated each year on February 8, we asked an expert what a parent can do. Dr Ateeq Qureshi at the Priory Wellbeing Centre, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, says: “Safe, or safer internet use – since safety can never be 100 per cent – covers all aspects of internet usage. The starting point is parental awareness about their children’s online activities and non-judgemental communication with the individual child or teenager.”

Dr Qureshi suggests the following tips to help parents support their children in the online world:

• Watch, play and browse together

Shared discovery from an early age helps increase parents’ awareness of the type of content their child is accessing. It also helps the child not to regard the parent as a clueless outsider in their online world. This is also very helpful further down the line as children get older, allowing conversations in a cooperative, rather than an adversarial manner.

• Engage and communicate in a non-judgemental way

Talk to your children about their internet use. Help them understand that you are not against online activities, but want to be involved and supportive as they navigate this vast and ever-changing, virtual world. Educate them about the dangers of sharing photos, sending intimate messages and interactions with strangers.

• Agree on family rules

Families should explain and agree rules around internet use with their children. These rules can include what sites or apps can be used; duration and timing; sharing of personal information and content; if and how to interact with strangers; as well as how to treat other people. These will help to keep children safe as well as encouraging them to be good online citizens.

• Adhere to age ratings

Age ratings are there for a reason – to protect your children and allow them to thrive. Explain the rationale in a manner that is appropriate for your child’s level of understanding.

• Monitor activities and usage

It is important to do this in an age appropriate manner and being respectful of a child’s privacy. This should not be a licence to snoop on your children but to do the minimum necessary to ensure safety.

• Educate yourself and keep up with the ever-changing online world

Parents can only help their children to be safe if they know what the risks are and what actions to take to help mitigate the risks. This requires a curious attitude and effort to learn about new apps, features within apps and online trends.

The monsters may be lurking around the corner, but just as each generation has before, each generation will again be victorious … with a little help from you.

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