Is Roblox Safe for Kids: A Safety Guide for Concerned Parents

Roblox is roblox safe for kids parents children safety

By Jackelyn Cornejo , Parent Herald Mar 29, 02:30 am

Photo: (Photo : LIONEL BONAVENTURE/AFP via Getty Images )

Roblox is prominent as one of the most globally popular games universally, boasting an influential 70.2 million average regular users as of November 2023.

However, the question of whether Roblox is a safe surrounding for kids is an intricate one, unfortunately disclosing that it isn't always the case.

What Is the Use of Roblox?

The appeal of Roblox lies in its characteristics allowing players to craft their virtual encounters. However, beneath its surface lies a darker side of comprehensively unsuitable adult content, cyberbullying, scams, hacking, and online predators.

Within this broad gaming platform, players encounter numerous dangers, such as "Beamers" who pilfer virtual items and games-often specified as "condo" or "scented" games-that expose gullible players, involving children, to adult-themed content.

While many gaming experiences on Roblox are deemed safe for children, instances have occurred where it inadvertently exposes them to harmful content, including elements of gambling.

Roblox serves as an online multiplayer gaming hub where users create avatars to participate in games and adventures fashioned by others. This immersive virtual realm blends user-generated gaming content with elements of social media and commerce, accessible across multiple devices like smartphones, PCs, Xbox, and Macs.

The platform's cross-platform availability propelled its popularity, especially among youth, during the pandemic, with nearly 29 million users under the age of 13. Given its dependence on user-generated content, Roblox develops on the creative input of its players.

While Roblox hosts innumerable user-generated encounters, some contain adult-oriented content, including profane language, violence, and sexual imagery.

However, these aren't the only threats; other dangers include cyberbullying, online predators, simulated violence, scams targeting young players for in-game currency (Robux), account takeovers, malware, financial fraud, and excessive gaming leading to addiction.

Roblox offers age suggestions for its content, ranging from appropriate for all ages to content acceptable for players over 17.

However, despite this recommendation, the platform lacks automatic age-proof checks, leaving open the probability of exposure to age-irrelevant content.

Strategies for Parents To Safeguard Children on Roblox

In response to these concerns, various strategies can help parents safeguard their children on Roblox, including using safe gaming tools to monitor conversations, setting up parental controls and PINs, enabling restrictions on certain experiences, reviewing children's activities, safeguarding accounts with strong passwords and two-factor authentication, educating children about online safety and privacy, monitoring voice chat, teaching children how to report abuse, setting time limits for gaming, installing antivirus software and VPNs, discussing how to handle encountering adult content, and actively engaging with children on the platform.

Ultimately, while Roblox implements measures like content filters and age restrictions, additional proactive steps are necessary to ensure children's safety online. Consistent dialogue, monitoring, and utilization of protective tools like Aura can offer enhanced security and peace of mind for families engaging with Roblox.

Roblox can be a safe gaming platform for children when parents note the suggestions of specialists. However, related to any technology, it carries basic danger.

Therefore, starting discussions about security with children early on is essential. Building a rule that children play Roblox in a communal family area, where their activities can be monitored, implementing parental controls, and regularly communicating with your children are effective measures to enhance their safety.