Older siblings and friends may play important, and sometimes overlooked, roles in helping parents keep their children safe on online gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft, according to new research led by Penn State.
Online gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft - with their 100 million and 25 million daily active users, respectively - allow and encourage players to develop and publish their own games on the systems. For example, within Roblox, even beginners can use Roblox Studio and the templates it offers to create, test and publish various types of games, like puzzles, roleplay games and simulations. But these user-generated games (UGGs) may pose safety risks, including monetary scams and inappropriate roleplay, to the millions of children who play daily. Parental control is often seen as the primary means for keeping child gamers safe, but children may hesitate to tell their parents everything about their online experiences.
Siblings, extended family and friends can help fill that gap, according to the researchers, who presented their work at the Interaction Design and Children Conference 2025 at Reykjavik University, Iceland.
"Although children may not share risky online encounters with their parents, they tend to share them with siblings, peers or extended family members like their aunts and uncles, who may be closer in age and have some knowledge of or even play games like Roblox," said Zinan Zhang, first author of the study and a doctoral candidate in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). "These individuals can help children build knowledge of and avoid scams and other risky situations in online video games."
The researchers conducted online video interviews with 26 child players ranging in age from 7 to 15, with a parent or guardian present, to identify the risky situations they encounter most often in online gaming platforms such as Roblox and the safety practices they employ to mitigate those risks. They then reviewed the interview transcripts for quotes related to child safety and identified more than 500 initial data points. They further analyzed those data points and identified three overarching themes regarding safety risks that child gamers encounter, and three themes regarding the safety practices they employ.
