Everyone has a ‘questionable life decision’ moment now and again, and mega companies are no exception. That said, Meta recently announced its plans to lower VR age requirements for Meta Quest accounts. Children between 10 to 12 years old can now create a VR persona via ‘parent-managed’ profiles.
As per Meta:
“With new parent-managed Meta accounts, we’re making it easier for parents to create and manage their family’s accounts on one device. We’ll require preteens to get their parent’s approval to set up an account, which will give parents control over the apps their preteens download from our app store. When parents share their preteen’s age with us, we’ll use this information to provide age-appropriate experiences across our app store. For example, we’ll only recommend age-appropriate apps.”
Sussy Gates
Young users are essentially ad-proof, while parents can also manage how long their children have daily VR access. On top of that, Parents can also monitor what their kids are doing in VR through device casting (TV and phone). Over at Horizon Worlds, pre-teen Horizon profiles will automatically be set to private, limiting predatory behavior. So, it sounds fine, right? Meta seems to have it all covered, meaning that lower VR age requirements shouldn’t have major repercussions, right?
The answer to that is not necessarily. So far, there is yet to be definitive data on the psychological and physiological effects of prolonged VR use. We also don’t yet have a clear understanding of the impacts of social interactions within such spaces. Considering the current impacts of Social Media, it’s easy to imagine how worse it would be in VR. So let’s lower VR age requirements and let kids explore, right? What could go wrong? They’re still under parental supervision, so things should be safe, right?
Again, we lack the necessary data to provide a conclusive yes or no. While Meta continues to develop management tools to help parents mitigate potential risks, most don’t have the time to monitor what their kids do online 24/7. That gap could be a vector for increased harm. Untreated, there could be a raft of new psychological papers exploring the impact of VR exposure on children. It also doesn’t help that kids are getting craftier at bypassing age restrictions and parental blocks. While parent-managed profiles are still relatively safer, they don’t guarantee immunity to harmful online elements.
On another front, this could introduce a new valuable market segment for Meta. Meta’s building its Metaverse for the next generation of web users. Kids who already engage in Metaverse-like worlds like Fortnite and Minecraft make up that next generation. This younger user demographic is more aligned with Meta as a connective tool. As such, getting them into VR could be a winner for Meta.
The Wrap
Considering all of the above elements, it makes sense why Meta wants this. At the same time, it feels like we’ve learned nothing from the current Social Media age. Over time, more studies have shown that Social Media interactions can have harmful effects on younger users. Mental health can suffer from exposure to harmful online elements, and we really should not be allowing kids to freely use Social Media apps, if at all until they at least reach the appropriate age.
Exposure to online sexual dangers is already a significant risk, with the same concerns slowly appearing in VR. Yes, Meta could potentially expand its market by lowering VR age requirements, but that comes with these inherent risks. Hopefully, Meta reconsiders their own parameters carefully before coming to a decision.
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