Is Roblox Safe for Teens? What Parents Need to Know

Welcome to Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam, the podcast dedicated to helping you tackle the challenges of parenting teenagers without the drama. I'm your host Dr. Cam, let's get on with the show. If your teen disappears into Roblox for hours, you're not alone and you're definitely not imagining the worry that comes with it is it's safe who are they talking to? Or are they even doing in there? Today we're pulling back the curtain with someone who knows the platform better than anyone, Tammy Baumick, vice president of civility and partnerships at Roblox. We're breaking down what Roblox actually is, how the safety tools work and even how you can use it to bridge a connection with your teen instead of battling with them. Before we get started, just a quick reminder to hit subscribe so you don't miss another episode and leave a review to help other parents find the support they need. All right, let's get into what parents really need to know about Roblox. Tammy, welcome, I'm so glad you could join me today. Dr. Cam, thank you so much for having me on. So excited to have this time with you. We get this question a lot, I get this question a lot from parents and one of the things that most parents don't know about Roblox is Roblox is not a game. Yeah, what is Roblox? Please tell me. I think we should start with that, let's start with that, what the heck is this thing? What is Roblox? So Roblox is actually going to round for 20 years, believe it or not. And so we've been around for a really, really long time. And how we started out was really education based. And so our founder and CEO, Dave Zuki, he really wanted to provide young people with tools that allowed them to create games and experiences born out of their own imagination. And so Roblox started back in 2006 and just that really supporting kids and creating games for their friends. And that's how it started. 20 years later, we have over 150 million daily active users. Oh my gosh, and we're global. So we're all around and 180 different countries. And what's very, very cool is we have about 6 million active developers on the platform. So what's awesome about is seeing young people, being able to develop skills and be able to learn how to code and developing relationships and friendships. And in some cases, developing their own studios. And so what we have seen, and I've been at Roblox for nine years. So I have seen a lot of evolution because we had young people on our platform from the very beginning, obviously safety was paramount. So it's one of the things that we're continually focusing on, continuing to evolve. As AI gets smarter and more precise, we're including AI in all of these different safety aspects. In fact, this past year, we launched 145 different safety tools. And really exciting, we actually announced we are the first and only platform at this point to do so, mandatory facial age estimation for anybody who wants to communicate on the platform. So what that means is that on Roblox, we are a platform that allows kids to make games and experiences and share with their friends. But as part of that experience, the fun thing is chatting with your friends. That's a scary thing too, for parents. It can be super fun. And it actually, what's really fun for teens, they come, they chat with their friends, they play games, share mutual interests, but it also introduced to some risk. So one of the goals is to reduce friction, make sure that minors are limiting their exposure and ability to talk to adults that they don't know. So how we're doing this, facial age estimation is a technology where you take a live video selfie, if you will, and you do it on your device on your phone and you look left, you look right, you look up, you down, it's very simple to do, but it estimates your age, it's very accurate. Once your age is estimated, it puts you into one of six buckets and the buckets are very defined. It's under the age of nine, it's 10 to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 and 20, and over 21. Okay. So once you're in that bucket, you can talk to others that are in your bucket or just on either side. And how we look at it is like, if you're in high school, you're able, if you're a, you're softer, you're able to talk to seniors, right, you're within that age group, but you won't be able to talk to somebody who's 24 or 35 or 45 without parental consent. So we really feel like this is a game changer. We just started rolling it out, we're starting to roll it out last week in the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, at the beginning of the year, we'll be expanding it out globally. So right now, you can go on facial age, estimate, it's optional here in the US, but in January, it will be mandatory if you plan on using any sort of communication on roadblocks. You can still come in and play, but honestly, it's much more fun when you're chatting with your friends. Let's step back right now because before that happens right now, and I love this, and I want to talk more about this, but we've got kids, winter break is coming up. I know I've talked to clients, and I always ask them what they love to do. And I'm going to tell you, roadblocks comes up more often than not. And I'm always asking, what do you even do on roadblocks? What is that? What do you spend hours and hours doing? So what are kids actually, you've said they can build stuff, but are they, like, what are they actually doing on there? So there are a lot of different games and genres that are on the platform. So what kids really love, what teens really love, they go in and, you know, from adventure games to, you know, strategy games, we actually have a learning hub that we've just introduced. So there are educational games, just FYI for parents, if they want to suggest that their kids play some educational games, there's some really fun things in our learning hub. So kids can jump around. The reason why it's so cool is because kids are able to find any sort of inspiration, that any sort of fun thing that they like to do, whether it be music, whether it be strategy whether it be hangout games, it is just, there's a whole lot of different games that you can try and bounce around. Grow a garden is one of our most popular games right now, I don't know if you've heard about it. Tell us about it. It's billions of players, and it's really honestly so simple. Okay. Sewing seeds, you know, buy seeds and sew, and you watch them grow, you harvest the fruits or the vegetables, and then you sell them, and then you buy new seeds, and then you put, and it's a very, very calming, and so on a lot, there is no, there's no end game, if you will. That's right. It's better. It's better. It's almost like therapeutic, it sounds like we do, and so, you know, speaking of therapeutic games, we actually have one that Aloe Yoga, one of the brands we work with, developed this meditation and mindfulness game, and within the first five days we have eight million people who had played this game, the feedback that we were getting from kids is one, one teen boy said that his parents were getting a divorce, the house was, they were always yelling at each other, and he'd never tried meditation. So he put on headphones, went into this game, meditation game, actually did mindfulness lessons with a whole group of people, and he found peace, and, you know, he was talking about with the practice of meditation and how it helped him. So there are a lot of things that can be done on Roblox that, you know, it's a whole ecosystem in a world that you can, you can really dive into and develop friendships as well. So it's very fun. I mean, there's so many positives, you're also from Roblox, so we want to make sure that people are hearing, because I know parents are still really, I mean, anything that's unknown and anything that's online, online and anything that's open to the world terrifies us parents. So how do we know if they're safe or what do we have in our control? Make sure that if they're on there, that they're safe and not, I love the facial recognition, and hopefully this is going to prevent some of this, but right now it's not there. How do we, how do we prevent that from like crepoids getting out of this? That's the biggest fear of mine, like who is pretending they're 13 and is 45. And you know, this is not just a Roblox problem. No, it's not. It is. Everything is a problem. This is a social problem. It is 100% a social problem. So you know, and I'm a mom of two daughters, so I really think about this a lot as well. So for parents out there, what I can say is, first of all, understand and learn more about Roblox. And I'm going to give a plug because we have a lot of information on the new safety center that we just introduced a couple of weeks ago. And if you go to corpcorp.roblox.com/safety, you will get to the new safety center where you can learn more about Roblox, what it is, the parental controls that we have introduced, as well as there is a civility and well-being section, which is my team section. We work with a lot of academics and researchers, pediatricians, safety NGOs from around the world to develop resources for parents and for teens that help them navigate not just Roblox but the online world. And you know, we really focus on education and community safety, not just on Roblox, but online in general. Part of that is, again, for parents, we've introduced a lot of different parent controls. So for parents, they can go in and connect with their teens, their teens have to approve, but our team council, which we have had in the last year, has told us, these are 14 to 17 year olds, have told us they actually want their parents to take interest in what they're doing. Absolutely. And so, one of the reasons why we developed this feature was feedback from the teen council themselves, who said that they wanted more interaction with their parents. And when their parents played Roblox with them, it made them feel seen. Yes. Right? They don't want parents hovering over them and like, you know, it's the inquisition. They want to be in there with them playing, playing, having fun, taking interest in what they're doing, asking them questions like, why, what, what game is your favorite, why is, why is it fun, what did you discover, how do you feel playing this game? And then also just lowering your defenses as a parent, you always feel like you have to know everything. Right. I'm in Roblox, it's so much fun when I, I am the worst Roblox player in the world, the worst. So when I play with my daughters, we laugh so much because I, I have such a hard time moving around. I'm falling into ditches. I'm like, you know, I'm like bouncing the walls so uncoordinated. It's not funny. Yeah. I go into a corner. I can't get out. I'm like, ready. And it brings us closer together. And it opens up conversation that is so important. It relaxes those defenses. And so by playing Roblox and asking your child to teach you how to play, you can play it together. And it, it will allow you to see what Roblox really is and why they love it so much. And hopefully it will, you know, it will make you feel much more comfortable of making sure that they're having the time of their life in a safe way. We do have the parental control where you can set time limits. You can see who their friends are. You can block mute. Teens have the ability to now take control of their own well-being. And these are also features that came out directly from our team council. They can set daily limits. They can spend controls. They can make sure who on their friends list, they want to block mute. They can put on a do not disturb signs. So this is one of the things that they ask for was that when they went on Roblox, sometimes you can see when you're online. Yeah. And sometimes they didn't want to play with their friends, right? They just wanted to go in and play. Grow a garden without having the pressure of playing with their friends. The whole point of grow with a garden is no pressure. Just chill out, right? So they can toggle it on, toggle it on and it will shut off that online feature so that they can play incognito, right? They don't, the friends won't know that they're online. So again, you can utilize all of these well-being tools, teens for teens, as well as parents can have visibility into what their teens are doing so they can feel much, much better about the overall environment that they're spending time in. One of the things that I always hear from parents is, oh, they are on all the time, and we argue all the time now, you know, get off, come to dinner, etc. So, you know, what our advice is, and this comes directly, one of our partners is the Digital Wellness Lab from Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical, and one of the things that they recommend that parents do is, if you are on a work call, think of it this way, if you're on a work call and somebody comes in and says, come to dinner right now, right now, you're like, whoa, wait, I am right in the middle of something that is important to me. It is very, very awkward to just cut it off. You're doing the same thing to your child, right? Even if you could leave right then, you don't want to because that just feels very controlling and you're like, wait a second. One of the things is when you're playing a game in Roblox, very often times you're playing with a group of friends, and so you have a response, if you're playing Capture the Flag, you have a responsibility to finish the game, because you don't want to duck out and leave your friends hanging. So, one of the things that they recommend, that digital wellness lab recommends, is come to an agreement, ask your team how much time do you need, give warning signals, right? So dinner is going to be in 30 minutes, how much time do you need to finish your game, and come to an agreement and it makes it so much easier to then say, because then the kid feels guilty, right? They're like, okay, I set these limits for myself, I've got to hold myself to this. That's one of the great pieces of advice that I actually received from the digital wellness lab, and so it's worked. That's what I teach parents too. It is all about the teaching them how to have their own limits and having that conversation with them and respecting what they're doing, because as soon as you respect what they're doing, now let me ask you this, how much time do kids typically spend on that, and how much time based on your research is actually a healthy amount, or when should we start getting worried? Yeah, you know, I think that the warning signals, so everyone is different, every family is different, and when we talk about screen time, it's not enough just to talk about overall screen time, right, because screen time is different. For some kids, it could be they're actually developing a game, and they're coding and they're doing something in terms of build. If you look at it a little bit like homework, screen time, you spend a lot of screen time when you're doing homework. So not all screen time is equal, so just like taking a step back in terms of, I know there's a lot of hype and there's a lot of concern about screen time and addiction. There is something called screen time addiction, but according to Digital Wellness Lab, it is a diagnosed, and Dr. Kim, you probably know this more than anybody, is a diagnosed problem. And I think that when you start seeing changes of behavior, outbursts, not eating, not coming out of the room for lengthy, lengthy periods of time, then you need to probably get more help to be able to support those behaviors. But for the majority of kids, it's not actual screen time addictions. It is behavior changes, it is setting guidelines and rules with your team as a partnership. And so those are some of the warning signals to look out for. I like to frame it because rules, as soon as you say rules, that's the one thing kids want to overcome, and they feel very restrictive by it. When you talk about skills, it's a very different thing. It's about learning the skill of balancing, the amount you're on screen versus off screen, learning the amount of time or learning to understand how it makes you feel and being attuned to that and knowing. So there are skills we can teach our kids because most of the kids I talk to do not want to spend all day long on a screen. Now they love, I will say they love roblox, which is why I wanted you on here because I was like, oh my gosh, I need to get here, you on here because every kid I talk to is obsessed with it. But I think we want to understand how do we help them find balance instead of fighting with them because suddenly we make it more appealing when we're constantly saying you can't have it, then it's like, well now all I want is that. That's exactly right. I don't want to tell you right now, no one at roblox wants a kid on roblox 24/7. We do not. Go out, breathe the fresh air, touch grass. So I'm going to raise my hand here because I know parents are going, I don't believe you because it's a business. So help me understand how do you balance that because I hear you and I know that you're working with a lot of people to keep it safe. But I think there's this belief in parents' minds, but wait a second. This is a business they are trying to make it addictive. How do you argue that? And we are not, and I'm living proof of that. So I run something at roblox called the civility initiative. The fact, my whole goal and my team's whole goal, and this is something that roblox has invested in, we take the long view on things, right? So the civility initiative is all about bridging the child parent digital education gap. And so what we do is we work with global partners to get smart about healthy habits. And then what we do is we go to our product and engineering teams and advocate for integration of those healthy habits, like integrating pro-social design strategies, features that, you know, again, that support wellbeing. We have, you know, as I mentioned before, limiting screen time. You can limit screen time in 15 minute increments. So if we were so focused on the bottom line, my team and the civility initiative actually wouldn't even exist. And so, you know, our whole mission at roblox is really, really focused on empowering young people to build and create and connect with one another. So it is part of the business model, because the happier you are, the more balanced that you are, you're going to have better experiences overall. And that is going to lead to positive sentiment, which will increase word of mouth. And so we really look at it from that standpoint, and I'm, you know, it's something that I'm really proud of, that our team is doing, and proud that the company has invested in the civility initiative. I would love to understand and help parents understand, because I think there's, there seems to be a very big like you are, and not just roblox, I'm just saying like all tech, it's like you are the evil empire people that are taking over our kids. And I've talked to, and even at the conference, there's the whole conference with everybody talking about how to keep kids safe and mentally healthy with tech. So I know a lot of companies, but I really talked to you a lot about what you guys were doing. So how do parents team up rather than fight against tech companies? And how do we work together with you to keep our kids safe and healthy? Yeah, you know, I, that is a, that's a great question that comes up all the time. And I know that it was a big topic at, at the conference. And I think one of the things that we're investing in is education. So there's a, there, it's a, I look at it, we look at it as a three-pronged approach. There has to be balanced regulation. And we are pro-regulation as long as it's balanced and evidence-based. Parental education and empowerment, which we're investing in with the civility initiative. And then overall, making sure that, you know, we're doing our part in educating our players and the kids on our platform to develop digital literacy skills that make it easier for them to navigate online safely. There are so many great things about the digital world. And I think it has been, there has been a huge overreaction, if you will, to weigh on the other side. And again, we need a balanced approach. And we need to work together to make sure that we're prioritizing our kids first. Yeah. I think it's hard because it's something that parents don't understand. We weren't raised with. So there's always fear around what we don't know. There's so many stories out there that just terrify us. But I agree with you that technology is here. And technology is going to continue to advance. In a decade, we're going to look back at to the stuff we're worried about now and be like, "Oh my God, that's so benign in lame. How are we worried about that?" Just like we do with things that we used to paint panic about back in the day. We're like, "That's so lame." Well, yeah, but it wasn't at the time. And you know, everyone's like, "But this, this is real." And I think there are always real threats, absolutely, but how we address it and how we approach it is what makes it different. Threats are going to go away. But I loved, and one of the things I really want to bring out and kind of talk to you about a little bit more, but also see if you have additional tips with that. But the one thing that really stood out to me and based off my work, too, is getting on it with your kids, having them teach you about Roblox, having them teach you and walk you through and show you the games that they love to do and the things that you love to do. That right there, I feel like, is the biggest protective factor not keeping them away from something that has so much creativity and ability to socialize. And frankly, is the direction the world's going in, so they need to know how to navigate those worlds. That's right. You know, I think that, you know, I said it a little bit earlier, 100% of the time. When I spend time with other parents and get to show them all of the parental controls and the safety tools and how we approach safety, they go into the games with their kids. They come out the other side and they go, "Oh my God, I feel so much better." Yeah. I feel so much better. And so either there's always fear of the unknown and so the parents that have the most angst and the most concerned are the parents who don't know anything about Roblox but are reading these sensationalized headlines. And, you know, again, with 150 million daily active users, there are going to be bad actors, just as there are bad actors in real life. We have, we use AI, we use technology to make sure that we are as safe as we can be. At the same time, I want to acknowledge the realities that this is the open internet and there are things that can happen. So we want to empower kids to be able to recognize any sort of danger or harm, know how to report it, know how to block it, know how to mute it, and know when it's, you know, when it's very problematic to go to a parent or a trusted adult to be able to report it. And we have relationships with NEPMEC, we have relationships with law enforcement. So when those things do occur, we jump on it. And so again, empowerment is really the key for parents as well as teens and kids and it needs to start from the very, very beginning when a child is the first device that they get into their hand, you need to start having conversations and it's an ongoing conversation. It's not just what is roadblocks and it's one and done. You need to continue that conversation and continue to have, you know, very casual conversations. I always have the best conversations in the car when it's relaxed with my kid because you're not at a kitchen table with the inquisition, right? And so having those conversations about their online life really happen in those more relaxed moments. Yeah. I love it too. I use that even in my, when I talk to clients to warm them up and get them comfortable because we'll sit there talking and I'll ask them about roadblocks or something and they just crack wide open because they get so excited and you start talking about that and it leads into much deeper conversations because they're now trusting you and relaxing and understanding and I think parents can really utilize that when we're not fighting them about it but we're curious about it and we're using it as a connection tool rather than conflict, it changes everything. What is, what is, okay, so I just want a few things. So what is the biggest thing or misconception that parents get wrong about roadblocks? That it's a game, that it's one game, right? And so, you know, it is a platform that is made up of many millions of games and experiences and, you know, that is, that's what the biggest misperception I think of the parents have. What is the first thing they can do today to help make sure their team is safe? So go in, take a look at the parental controls and the first thing that they should do is go to that site that I shared earlier, which is corp.roadblocks.com/safety. In there, there are videos, there are details in terms of the parental controls and then in the civility and well-being section, there are so many resources about how to guide your team, how to guide your child on safety, overall, on roadblocks and beyond. So utilize those resources so that you can get much more familiar with what roadblocks is. I love it and I'll have the link in the show note so people can find it absolutely. Okay, what is kind of a range of time that seems reasonable based off of research and when do we start going, okay, you're on that way too much? I can't answer the number of hours because it is different for every family and it's so dependent upon actually what they are doing on the screen. So what I can say again is watch as a parent, watch for those flags. If they're behavior changes, if your child's not eating, if they're not sleeping, those are the things to really watch out for. And finally, if we know that they are contacted or something really scary and scheezy happens on there, what do parents do? So there is a report, there is a report abuse button in the game as well as on the platform. We want to hear about it. You want to hit the report abuse, you want to provide as much information as you can in terms of user names, if you can get a screenshot, you want to make sure that we're getting the information that we need in order to dig in and evaluate what actually what is happening. So we are also coming up with incredible, pretty amazing technology using AI. We've shared it with the world, it's called open source and what open source means is we are sharing our technology with other companies to we have real time voice moderation. So again, all of the chats, all of the voice is moderated, it goes through filters. And so we are sharing this technology out with the world, but we're using it internally to be able to detect harm. And then we are also, we have a product called Sentinel. And what Sentinel is, is it actually tracks any sort of grooming pattern, anything that is skeasy, it's like very uncomfortable, that our AI is continuing to get better and better and better and better. And so I'm really looking forward to continued progress from a safety front on robots. I love that. What have I not asked? Oh my gosh, Dr. Cam, I think we went through everything. Can you tell, this has been on my head a lot. Like I was not excited to talk to you because this is something I know many parents really struggle with and it is, it is something that scares people. But yet again, when I talk to teens, it is so much part of their world that we need to find a way to find that connection between the two because right now it seems to be a cause of disconnection and that, that's sad to me, just sad to me. And we don't want that because we see so many, we see so much great outcomes from kids playing on Roblox, they've developed self-esteem, they've developed, you know, actual skills that they're setting themselves up for great careers, some are, you know, developing studios and businesses, and really we've, with AI, we've democratized creation. So a lot of kids who weren't interested in coding ever are able to use gender to the AI to actually create digital items. They're able to start creating games that they have always wanted to create but didn't want to code. So there's so much opportunity for teens to use Roblox in ways that are so positive, but again, we want to make sure they're educated and empowered to stay safe. Yeah, I love that. Tammy, thank you so much for jumping on with me. I really, really appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. Kamm, anytime, anytime, I would love to come back anytime. It's good. I love it. I want to hear more about when the face recognition comes out too, because I would love that across everything. Although it scares me if it comes back with an age, I don't know if it's gonna be real promising for adults. Well, at some time, we want to make sure that all of that's private. So once your age is determined, the information is deleted, so we're not using it. We're not using it for advertising, we're only putting you in the age bucket that you should be in. I love that. It's easy. People will be age identified, and that's my favorite. That's what stuck out to me. I was like, good. All right, Tammy, I will let you go. We will talk soon. All right. Thank you again. Thank you, Dr. Kamm. And that's a wrap. Thank you, parents, for taking time out of your busy day to listen in. I appreciate you. If you found the episode enlightening, please like, review, and share with a friend navigating the teen years. Until next time, stay curious. Remember, there's always more to the story than what you see. [BLANK_AUDIO]