Parenting Roblox, Minecraft, and YouTube?

Should your child play Roblox? Is Minecraft a safe choice for a child? How do we go about handling YouTube? Today, we’re putting our tech conversations to work and looking at all three of these to assess:

1. Are they safe?
2. Is my child ready?
3. Is the fruit good?

Show Notes:

Resources:

Roblox is worse than we thought: https://tinyurl.com/5fbz5c5w

The markets reacted to this report. Roblox’s stock dropped 9%: https://fortune.com/2024/10/09/roblox-hindenburg-research-report-pedophile-hellscape/#

A few highlights (lowlights?) from the research: 

• “Roblox reports that 21% of its users are under the age of 9, a number that is likely underestimated given that Roblox has no age verification aside from users seeking 17+ experiences.”
• “After we found a username, we listed our age as ‘under 13’ to see if children are being exposed to adult content. By merely plugging ‘adult’ into the Roblox search bar, we found…3,334 members openly trading child p[***] and soliciting acts from minors.”
• “Despite Roblox’s claims of “best in the world” content moderation, our interviews with moderators show safety was largely outsourced to Asian call centers. Moderators described being paid $12 a day to review countless instances of child grooming and bullying with a limited ability to keep perpetrators off the platform permanently.”

Choose the Best Tech:

• Is it safe? (Luke 11:11)
• Is your child ready? (Luke 16:10)
• Is the fruit good? (Galatians 5:19-22)

Assess Your Tech:

• Does the tech meet family expectations? (Philippians 4:8)
• Does the tech improve your RESET? (John 10:10)
• Remember, if tech brings bad fruit, it is expendable and can be replaced by life-giving adventures (Matthew 5:28-30)

Other Gospel Tech Resources:

• Build a Family Tech Framework (gospeltechworkshop.com)
• Anna’s devotional to help us focus on Christ, not our tech: The Graceful Disconnect (Amazon or Gospelcenteredtech.com)
• Nathan’s resource for families to connect the hope of the Gospel to their daily tech lives: Gospel-Centered Tech (Amazon or Gospelcenteredtech.com)

Find Gospel Tech: Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

*Transcription can be found on most podcast platforms.