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00:00:01
Why Your Parents Won't Let You Play Roblox
207 Plays1 month ago
Script : https://pastebin.com/xuiEkaQ4
Addictive Design: : 2:30
Impact on Life and Education : 6:52
Online Predators : 10:25
Conclusion 12:25
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:11
Andrew Wilmot
Good
Introduction to Video Games and Children
00:00:12
Andrew Wilmot
morning, good day, good evening, whenever you are, or welcome to the Dopamine Slot Machine. The podcast discusses what you need to know about the video games your children are playing. How are they designed to get your kids hooked? How do they make money from your children? And what can you do to make sure that your child's relationship with video games is a positive one?
00:00:29
Andrew Wilmot
My name is Andrew. I'm a dad of two and a lifelong gamer. And this is a bit of a special episode, as this one is designed to be listened to with your child. I'll be giving age-appropriate reasons as to why Roblox is not safe for children, writing this for an 8 to 12 age group. But you may find it useful for ages outside of that range as well.
00:00:49
Andrew Wilmot
I recommend you either listen to this without your child first or read the transcript ahead of time, which I'll put in the podcast description, as my views and explanations may not line up with yours and I will be touching on topics such as addiction, gambling and mental health, albeit in a sanitised way. I will
Why Roblox Might Be Harmful for Kids
00:01:08
Andrew Wilmot
signpost each section so if there is anything that you don't feel your child is ready to hear, you can easily move on ahead and the section times will be in the description as well.
00:01:17
Andrew Wilmot
So, Without further ado, here we go hi my name is Andrew and I've been playing video games since I was three years old. I play video games with my own children.
00:01:30
Andrew Wilmot
I teach parents about the video games that children play. Your parent or the other caring adult may have seen me at a talk or in a video or listened to this podcast or they may have been sent it by somebody else.
00:01:41
Andrew Wilmot
But they are listening to that with you because they want to help you understand why they've made the decision not to let you play Roblox. I've worked with scientists, teachers, and even the people who make games so that I can help other parents as much as possible make the best choice for their children.
In-Game Spending Mechanics
00:02:00
Andrew Wilmot
So firstly, I know it's popular with your friends. I know that you hear about games like Steal a Brain Rot, Brook Raven, RP, Adopt Me, or Rivals. And I know that it can be hard feeling like everyone else is playing a game that you're not allowed to.
00:02:14
Andrew Wilmot
But there are some really good reasons that nobody, children or adults, should play Roblox. As a reminder to parents, because I know kids know this, but Roblox isn't a game, but a place that you can go and find endless games. And they're all free.
00:02:29
Andrew Wilmot
But are they free, really? If they're free, how does Roblox make any money? And how do the games in Roblox make us want to keep playing, even when it stops being fun? Roblox makes money when you buy Robux, the in-game money. So you're spending real money to get this virtual money. You can then spend that Robux in these games.
00:02:52
Andrew Wilmot
And that's why the developers, people who make these games, make their money. So they get some of the money that you spend then goes to the people who make those games. Now, Roblox is a business and it is trying to make as much money as possible.
00:03:05
Andrew Wilmot
And that means it's trying to get to you to spend, or convince your parents to spend, as much money as possible there. And it's very good at it. It is making billions of dollars a year. really difficult amount of money to imagine.
00:03:19
Andrew Wilmot
But the ways it makes you want to spend money on it are sneaky. The developers of games in Roblox know that the more time you spend in a game, the more likely you are to want to spend money in that game.
00:03:30
Andrew Wilmot
And so they design their games in a way that make you feel like you need to keep playing, that you need to spend more and more time in this game. Some games even give you rewards or reminders for playing every day and then take those rewards away if you don't log in every day.
00:03:48
Andrew Wilmot
These games quickly stop being fun. They stop making us feel good when we play them and instead start making us feel bad when we don't play them. Some games...
00:03:59
Andrew Wilmot
like the shooting game Rivals, keeps all the best items locked away unless you spend real money, which then makes it feel unfair playing against other people, which is the point of the game, unless you also spend money.
00:04:14
Andrew Wilmot
One really
The Cycle of Virtual Spending
00:04:15
Andrew Wilmot
sneaky thing these games do is the way they set to the prices for items in games means you'll always have some Robux left over. Scientists know that this makes us then want to buy more virtual currency, more Robux, to then get something else, to use up that leftover, leaving us trapped in a cycle where we never feel like we've used up our Robux. We always feel like we've got some going to waste.
00:04:40
Andrew Wilmot
Now, I want to ask you something. Christmas, as I'm recording this, has is only three weeks in the past. It's just been
Virtual vs. Tangible Gifts
00:04:50
Andrew Wilmot
really...
00:04:51
Andrew Wilmot
How did it feel unwrapping a present? How did it feel for seeing it under the tree? Well, this year, Robux, V-Bucks, which is the equivalent in Fortnite and other video game monies, were some of the most asked for Christmas presents, even more asked for than video games themselves.
00:05:09
Andrew Wilmot
Now, I still have a cuddly possum toy that I got as a gift when I was six years old, and I still have a model T-Rex skull from Christmas when I was 11.
00:05:18
Andrew Wilmot
If you got Robux, and spent it on an item in a game for Christmas, you'll only keep that as long as that game exists, or you have a Roblox account. And I can promise you, you won't even remember what you got when you're older.
00:05:32
Andrew Wilmot
When you think about it like that, spending real money for fake items feels a bit sad, doesn't it? There's so many other better things that you could be spending your money on than fake items in a video game.
00:05:45
Andrew Wilmot
So many of these games, by the way, have really short rounds of playing. In some games, it only takes a couple of minutes before the game resets. When you watch a film, you get to the end.
00:05:58
Andrew Wilmot
There's an end point. You can watch the credits and then it's done. You don't need to then start the film up again. When
Endless Game Loops and Their Effects
00:06:05
Andrew Wilmot
you read a book, you can get to the end of a chapter. When you watch a TV show, you can be like, okay, I will finish this episode.
00:06:12
Andrew Wilmot
with more but With how games used to be made, you could get to the next save point or complete a level. Without having that, it can be really difficult for us to feel like we're finished playing, to feel like we're ready to stop.
00:06:26
Andrew Wilmot
So there's no point where it feels right to stop playing, which makes it very difficult to stop. It can be upsetting when we do have to stop playing, whether that's because dinner's ready, whether that's because our time is up, whether it's because we've got to go somewhere or go to bed.
00:06:42
Andrew Wilmot
For a lot of children, it's so difficult to stop playing that they do things like sneak their tablet or games console into their room to play through the night, meaning that they're not getting the sleep they need.
00:06:53
Andrew Wilmot
And that makes you feel grumpy the next day. it's it's Sleep is important for everybody, but particularly for children. I'm now going to talk a bit about the things that you can miss out on if you focus too much on video games, including missing out on life and impact on exams. So this is another signposted bit. Feel free to move past this onto the next section if this is not the part that you want to cover with your child.
00:07:21
Andrew Wilmot
So I said that I've played games for my whole life, but the way I play games has changed a lot over the years. When I was a lot younger, when I was a child, I would play the sorts of games that never really had an end. I might replay the same games. It was quite, I was spending a lot of time playing games.
00:07:40
Andrew Wilmot
If I ask you to think about something you did that really made you happy, you'll probably think of something you're proud of achieving. Maybe you did really well at school on something. Maybe you worked really hard with a musical instrument or art or or a club or hobby.
00:07:58
Andrew Wilmot
Perhaps you'll think about something fun you did with friends or somewhere interesting you went. When I was a child, I played way too much video games. I remember missing out on a friend's birthday party because I was so engrossed in a video game, so stuck in that game that I completely forgot until he phoned us.
00:08:20
Andrew Wilmot
Video games can be fun and I still play games. I play games for my own children. I don't think all video games are bad. I think there are some beautiful games out there, but it isn't real life and it isn't real play.
00:08:34
Andrew Wilmot
It isn't real friendship with real people. And games like the ones on Roblox, which are designed to steal all of your attention, that want make you want to do nothing else but play the games on Roblox, will make you miss out on the real world.
00:08:50
Andrew Wilmot
You probably already have friends who are too obsessed with the games they play. And you might even notice real impacts on them. You might see how... this changes the way they behave.
00:09:03
Andrew Wilmot
Real play stretches your brain, it gets you active and it leaves you feeling good. Roblox won't ever do that. Playing too much video games at your age can also make things harder for the rest of your life too.
00:09:18
Andrew Wilmot
When you're older, you will have GCSEs, then maybe A-levels, maybe you'll go to university. right now you are putting down the building blocks for the rest of your life. What you learn in school now will build up to what you learn next year and the year after. year after that, until you are doing these exams, I might feel right now, so far in the future.
00:09:39
Andrew Wilmot
And this is really exciting.
Long-Term Impacts of Excessive Gaming
00:09:41
Andrew Wilmot
This is something you should be excited about. But learning takes some work and it takes time. In school lessons, of course, but also at home with homework, also just learning,
00:09:53
Andrew Wilmot
around things you find interesting. Now, I've had friends of mine fail important exams when they're teenagers because they just couldn't put down the games they were playing to learn properly.
00:10:04
Andrew Wilmot
And this has then impacted the rest of their lives. It's made it harder to then go to the university they wanted to go to. It made them harder to get the jobs they wanted to get. I've had friends as a grown-up who have lost their jobs because they spent too much time playing video games, particularly late at night, so they're exhausted the next day.
00:10:23
Andrew Wilmot
Games like Roblox are particularly risky for this because, as we mentioned, it makes you feel like you want to you need to play it, and it's made that way on purpose. So this is another sign poster section. It's a short one. I'm going to talk a little bit about how Roblox is not very good at keeping children who play it safe.
00:10:43
Andrew Wilmot
Parents,
Communication Risks in Roblox
00:10:44
Andrew Wilmot
depending on the age and maturity of your child, you may wish to skip this section. So there are several ways to talk with other people in Roblox through in-game chat and through direct messages.
00:10:56
Andrew Wilmot
A lot of children, probably your friends, use this to talk with their friends in-game or to work with their team in a game. And so You might hear of your again your friends using Roblox as a sort of way to hang out with each other when they're not actually able to be with each other.
00:11:15
Andrew Wilmot
But there are people who will play Roblox who you really don't want to be talking with. You don't want them to be messaging you. There are people who find it fun to send messages that will try and upset you. You might have heard of Roblox scammers, hackers or cyber bullies.
00:11:32
Andrew Wilmot
But there are also people who will send messages that seem friendly, and then some of these people even enjoy hurting children. This is something that police around the world have warned about.
00:11:44
Andrew Wilmot
It's so bad that in America, the head lawyers in three different states have announced lawsuits against Roblox. One of them, Attorney General Scometti, said this.
00:11:56
Andrew Wilmot
Roblox invites children into a fantastic online world with the promise of creativity and play, but that wonderland is a trap. Roblox worked to reduce oversight and child safety resources despite repeated warnings because less overhead meant more profit.
00:12:12
Andrew Wilmot
The whole time the company lied and said safety was its top priority. So to explain that, what this head lawyer is saying is that Roblox deliberately made it less safe for children because in doing so they were able to make more money.
00:12:32
Andrew Wilmot
I'm going to finish up ah kind of finish up now, so that was the the last of the signposted sections and we'll move on to a conclusion. So,
Exploring Better Gaming Alternatives
00:12:41
Andrew Wilmot
Roblox isn't the only game that is like this.
00:12:44
Andrew Wilmot
Fortnite, EA FC, Call of Duty, loads of games are bad for you in similar ways to how Roblox is. And I promise you, there are better games out there than what you can find on Roblox. Games that are more fun, with genuinely brilliant stories, enchanting worlds for the secrets, and that aren't using tricks to make you want to keep playing, even when it stops being fun.
00:13:08
Andrew Wilmot
Games where you can play with your friend on the same screen, rather than being separated over the internet. Games you can even play with your parents. I always encourage parents to play video games with their children, if their children are playing video games.
00:13:21
Andrew Wilmot
I've had some amazing times playing video games with my children, and as someone who hass played games for over 25 years, children deserve better games than Roblox. Parents, I won't name any here, but I have covered a number of these in previous episodes, or feel free to contact me if you have a specific game you want looked at.
00:13:42
Andrew Wilmot
Children, It might be hard now if your parent has said no to or even taken away roadblocks. But I promise you, when you are an adult, you'll be glad that they have made this decision.
00:13:54
Andrew Wilmot
And that's it.
Conclusion and Call for Screen-Free Childhood
00:13:55
Andrew Wilmot
If this has resonated with you, then look up Smartphone Free Childhood, which is a grassroots movement to delay giving children smartphones until 14. They work with politicians, teachers and health professionals, but also directly with parents.
00:14:07
Andrew Wilmot
One thing I found really helpful is the local meetups that our smartphone free charter branch has run, which has been able to show my own children that they're not the only ones. not all of their peers have smartphones, not all of their peers are on Roblox, and that it is normal, healthy and enjoyable to have a childhood that is not centred around a screen.
00:14:28
Andrew Wilmot
As always, feel free to get in touch at thedopamineslotmachine at gmail.com if you have any questions, queries or just want to talk about the issues discussed today. Thank you so much for joining. This has been the Dopamine Slot Machine.
00:14:39
Andrew Wilmot
Thank you and see you soon.