Meghna Sharma, Advika’s mother 

We are at Advika’s Versova residence, sitting beside her as she plays the game on her aunt’s old phone. She has chosen a game called Good Girls, where her avatar walks in and out of pink rooms, attending fashion shows, buying new nails, or outfits, and is generally being fabulous. She says, she also likes playing Adopt Me, where you can take care of different kinds of animals. Usually she plays it while chatting with friends on another device, so they can sync their movements. “On her last birthday, she asked us to buy her Robux, instead of anything physical!” says her aunt, business journalist Samidha Sharma. When she is not playing or doing school work, Advika is on YouTube, watching EllieV Toys, a channel about lego, or MeganPlays, which is dedicated to playing Roblox games. 

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 To establish boundaries is a challenge, admits her mother Meghna Sharma, a corporate communications professional. The one time Advika was caught playing the game while juggling a school class on Zoom, her mother lost it. “There was a drawing assignment given, and because Advika wanted to complete the game task, she quickly scribbled something and went back to the game. I deleted the app that day and that was followed by a lot of anger and tears,” she remembers. 

Advika Sharma, 8, wants to be a dancer when she grows up, but after she has got into Roblox, she may decide to become a gamer. Pic/Satej Shinde

It’s easy to see why a virtual experience like Roblox is proving attractive to young children, especially those aged eight to 11. A child is getting to be anything she wants, free from parental instructions, and is making her own decisions whether it’s to do with where she goes, what she buys or who she talks to, virtually. Some will say that building worlds by yourself at an early age could make one confident and outgoing. 

When we got in touch with Roblox, the firm’s Director of Community Safety and Digital Civility, Laura Higgins, offered us insight. Roblox has been “a lifeline”, she said, helping kids and teens stay in touch with their friends, and connect with extended family, during the Coronavirus-induced lockdown across the world. “Essentially, Roblox is a new way for people to be together, especially so when we can’t be in person. And the future of how we play, work, learn, and experience things together is this. While traditional play happens in playgrounds and public spaces, in today’s world, the same kind of learning takes place online, too—in virtual playgrounds where kids can develop critical thinking skills, collaborate, and socialise. On Roblox, they can get creative and build their own games, objects, design clothes or a virtual home. We’ve heard many times how creative interests and skills developed on Roblox turn into real-life career aspirations and entrepreneurship,” she adds. 

Advika’s mother Meghna Sharma, a corporate communications professional, says they keep a track of what she plays and whom she talks to. Telling her not do it at all is pointless

This may not necessarily be a stretch of imagination. Advika, a Class III student, is opinionated and uninhibited. When the mid-day team shoots a video of her dancing to a song called Girl Power, she doesn’t display awkwardness. She may not have an Instagram account yet, but she is already prepping for it by making videos on any phone she gets her hands on. This includes dance videos or a virtual walkthrough of her home. After being introduced to Roblox, she thinks she may even want to be a gamer. She is inquisitive and confident, answering questions about her life intelligently. “I like my best friend because when we argue, we can agree to disagree,” she says. It’s not something you’d expect an eight-year-old to say. Meghna and husband Shardul Sharma, say they realised early that they can’t keep her shielded. “We have allowed her to do what she likes—which is playing the game, or listening to music which may have lyrics that are a bit dodgy—as long as we know what she is listening to. We don’t let her use headphones,” her mother says, adding that she listens to Kishore Kumar, thanks to her father’s LP collection. But the parents do worry about how much is too much. “The other day her shorts were tight, so she said, ‘oh, that’s because I am thick’! How did she know she had to say that? We try and strike a balance. We allow her access to Roblox once a day for an hour. The good thing about her is that she doesn’t sulk—if you sit and talk to her like she’s an adult, which she is anyway in the game, she understands. stands. She told us two years ago, ‘Isee you guys going to office and crib about your bosses. I never want to do that!’ It looks like she will be who she wants to be. What we, as parents have realised is that all we can do is be friends with her, and stay privy to her life to help guide her.”

Like Advika, 10-year-old Alina Khan, is a Roblox and Instagram fan, and wants to be an influencer when she grows up, because “they get recognised”. She likes to dance and hopes that she can inspire others with it.  What she likes about Roblox is that she gets to talk to different people online, which her parents find problematic. Her father, Imran Khan, has access to her Instagram account and keeps a watch. “Last Christmas, she emotionally blackmailed me into buying her Robux. We can’t keep them off the phone; the lockdown has made it impossible,” Khan says, adding that he has made peace with the fact that no matter how hard he tries, Alina is going to be a social media star. “Her mother worries that she’s ignoring her Quran studies. Either she’s playing Roblox or following make-up stars like James Charles. She has ordered a makeup palate from them too, having learnt tricks like how to contour your face. How much can we monitor?” Alina also makes dance videos and is excited with every ‘like’ she receives. While her parents are encouraged that she’s good at what she does, and hence popular, she may be already falling into the modern body image trap. “There are days she feels guilty for having a burger or bowl of Maggi. She may get fat, she thinks. When she buys currency without a thought, I worry that she won’t understand the value of money,” Khan shares. 

Roblox player Alina Khan wants to be an influencer when she grows up, because “they get recognIsed”. Her father Imran says she follows makeup artists and has learnt complex hacks including  face contouring. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

But, Higgins has reassuring words for parents of Roblox players. She says because the app and its games were designed for kids and teens, they have a stringent safety system in place. “It’s one of the most rigorous among platforms, and continuously evolves to create a safe and civil community. For example, we have extremely stringent default chat filters to protect our community that block inappropriate content, including questions about personal information, and we also use automation to flag content for further review by our moderators. We monitor chat behaviour that clearly indicates an attempt to bring a player off our platform to another, less restrictive third-party chat apps. For users under 13, our filters are even stricter, and we do not allow the sending of images or video via chat or one-to-one user interactions. We also offer parental controls. One of our top recommendations for parents is to ask their kids what games they play, who they chat with and ask what they like about their favourite games on Roblox, and play with them! Show genuine interest.”

According to estimates, almost 190 million people are playing Roblox currently, most of them children, and at least 44 per cent are girls. A research paper on Roblox on researchgate.net, says, “A video game is a popular trend among young people and using it as a learning tool will help motivate and engage students. It can also help student’s communication ability, adaptability, and resourcefulness. Playing video games can increase the player’s neuroplasticity and sharpen the person’s ability to tune out distractions.” Sudarshan Ranganathan, who runs iXie Gaming, which is into video game testing, says kids are drawn to the fact that they can control their own world. “It helps them relate to stuff that’s top of mind in their age group, and they can make decisions and face the repercussions too. There is an educational component, which teaches them the important life skill of decision making. But such platforms can attract traffickers and is fertile ground for cyber bullying.” Game designer Ishan Manjrekar tells us that Roblox already has a set of filters and the platform also claims to have a high number of human moderators as well. “One strong draw is the feeling of community. The gameplay is built on collaboration, empathy, and team bonding. All parents need to do is get more involved [when they know their child is on Roblox].” Child therapist, Jehanzeb Baldiwala, of Ummeed Child Development Centre, agrees that what’s in a parent’s control is to ensure  moderation. “Otherwise, a child can lose touch with reality—in the game, they can buy things easily, but in real life, they can’t. If it’s excessive, then a 
child’s tolerance levels drop. 

Yuvaan Patil Ahirao, 9, and his mother Madhuri have been making videos for YouTube since he was seven. The content usually concerns cooking

They will get quickly upset when they don’t get the things they desire. I would advice, say no for Instagram if your child asks for an account to be opened. It has graphic images and is exaggerated [in nature].”

Along with Roblox, YouTube, which has been at the receiving end of criticism for years for adding stress to children’s life and over-sexualising them, has been trying to take steps to reduce strife. In 2020, it terminated two million channels. It is also using machine-learning to mine harmful content that targets kids. According to its website, the YouTube staff “carefully reviews flagged content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to determine whether there’s a violation of our Community Guidelines.” Madhuri Patil Ahirao, mother to YouTuber Yuvaan, is happy to hear this. “We allowed him to start making videos three years ago, when I had to spend more time at home since I was not keeping well,” she says, Yuvaan, 9, edits his own videos, and most of them are about cooking. He says, here on, he is also going to explore gaming videos. “He wants to become a racer in real life, so we are going to make videos about that too. How is it possible to control screen time after the pandemic has locked all of us at home? What I can do is spend more time creating with him. And since we do educational content, he learns along the way, He does like the fact that he has followers, and gets excited when people call him and say we saw your channel. We advice him not to get competitive.”

Ishan Manjrekar, Jehanzeb Baldiwala and Laura Higgins

They may not be competitive, but these children are learning to hustle, thanks to the pace of the game and the world of videos. As parents watch their kids get on with the world, with skills they learn in the virtual realm, all they can do, as Meghna Sharma puts it, is “… remind them that this is not life. Getting likes, validation, living virtually…that’s not life. Getting 100 Likes isn’t living.”

2 m
Number of channels YouTube terminated in the first quarter of 2020 for violating platform guidelines