I am a grandmother, retired teacher, who does not know much about gaming, excepting seeing my grandsons on it, the youngest most avidly. Sitting beside him I see him flip back-and-forth through screens so quickly, which are advertisements, others I'm sure are the payment opportunities. I don't think his parents have really sat down, seeing all that is going on.
I did read through all of your article just to better inform myself if possible. And, in addition to this most importantly is the attention you're giving to kids just on screens, in general, this stealing away there immediate touch with life. You knowing that the phones and the electronic devices, such as Chromebook, are all limiting the thinking abilities, the true thinking and discovering and integrative mental abilities of children, we handing over so much of our lives to the manipulation by non-human forces. We are in big trouble and a huge restoration of life to the living must continue and succeed.
I’m right there with you, I'm another grandma watching this unfold with growing concern. What you described sitting beside your grandson, I’ve seen the same thing. It’s not just entertainment anymore, it’s constant stimulation, manipulation, and distraction and most parents don’t realize how deep it goes.
You said it so well: we’re handing over our children’s minds to forces that don’t care about their growth or wellbeing. The hardest part is knowing how much has already been lost… but like you said, we must restore what it means to really live.
Grateful for your voice, we need more of us speaking up.
While this has taken over children's lives, it is the same happening in schools. Ever since the industrial revolution we've had industrialized education forcing children to give up their intuitive connection to life and focus only on fact, numbers, and letters, this hiked up terribly by tech. Those here with learning differences are wired toward what we have left behind in ourselves: inspiration, insight, passions, and life connection instead of separation and isolation. I'm retired, but am still striving to awaken education: www.heartcenteredminds.com.
It is amazing how much of this I didn’t know. We try to be aware of what our kids are playing and our oldest stopped the online games and social on his own saying it is a waste of time but it is so addictive!
Important for people to know: Boston Children's Digital Wellness Lab, which many families see as a trusted source of digital safety advice, is FUNDED BY ROBLOX.
Michael Rich, founder of the Roblox-backed Digital Wellness Lab, has said: “There should be no time limits on screens because that leads to deprivation and rebellion.” Michael Rich also helped draft the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2016 screen time guidelines, which, in a departure from the previous guidelines, no longer recommend any specific screen limits for children over the age of 5.
The guidelines: "It can be tempting to want a set number of hours on screens that is “safe” or healthy to guide your family’s technology use. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough evidence demonstrating a benefit from specific screen time limitation guidelines."
We have to start calling out these conflicts of interest. Would we trust dietary advice from a doctor or health organization who was funded by Burger King? Of course not. This is no different.
Actually, the American Heart Association and other groups like it are funded by major brands, something I learned about on the Honestly Podcast by Bari Weiss.
There’s a long history of companies funding studies or backing groups to support findings favorable to a product, going back at least a hundred years. Sugar, carbs.
The whole “butter and animal fats bad” is also a victim of similar movements that demonized healthy fats and favored manufactured ones, like margarine, Oleo, etc. Once you know it’s hard to un-know.
As someone who's been making games for 20 years now, this is something I've talked about regularly. While World of Warcraft may seem like the starting point to many (there were MUDD games prior - endless text based RPGs), I put the point at Facebook games. That was when straight up gambling mechanics were introduced. The techniques were then amplified in much of mobile gaming (which hooks adults as well)
The GaaS mobile is prevalent and the most popular games are ~8 years old now, meaning new games are having trouble catching on. You rightly mention that there is good/educational content on Roblox, but also there is plenty of bad
A knock-on effect issue is the games industry itself has become somewhat stagnant. GaaS games have hurt creativity in the AAA space as major publishers have become over reliant on them
Some potential good news, on the whole, is there is a drive by players for more bespoke content so AA/iii games have been making a comeback. Those games tend to be more traditional with an upfront cost and finite playtime based around a story
But games like Roblox, Fortnite, etc remain extremely popular with kids and the streaming community. So if kids are watching Twitch or Youtube they can easily find streamers playing those games which, in turn, gets the kids to want to play
Parents need to be cognizant of what their kids are playing and understand what the games are. Best thing to do is get them a Switch (or Switch 2) and play games with them and let them play their own. There's a lot of great and fun games there that don't have the GaaS game systems embedded
(There's a lot more to this topic and I have tons of additional thoughts, but I'm on vacation so wanted to keep it brief)
Thank you, Bennett and Zach. This post is essential reading, and your title is a statement I wish all parents would take to heart. Do some games have a place for some kids? Sure. But today's games almost always have a family impact trade-off of some kind related to conflict, content, and compulsivity. Parents, please carefully weigh the costs by doing research, playing the game (our 7-day rule), and making it clear up front that you can remove the game anytime.
Other small notes for parents: If an app-based game has an ad-free version, highly consider it. Paying the $0.99 to remove ads, which don't obey the age-rating of the game, is often worth it. I've received hundreds of messages from parents whose kids were exposed to explicit ads in games made "for kids." Don't allow kids to play games outside of their age-rating. Even at 12+ in the Apple App Store, Roblox is highly problematic, yet it's played by millions of elementary-aged children. And, you might consider a no-headphone rule for multi-player gameplay.
Yeah, there are no rules. Parental controls don't work. When set, on Apple for example, your kids cannot install a game above their age rating BUT they can still see them all and they can still request permission to install it, triggering a notification to the parent to decline or approve. And the ads seen in games do not correspond to the age settings. e.g. my kids playing 8 and under games but seeing boobs and bdsm type ads.
As a mom and grandma, this makes me furious. We handed our kids a weapon disguised as a toy and now we’re watching the fallout in real time. Their childhoods, their mental health, their very sense of self are being hijacked by systems that were never designed to protect them.
What scares me most is what comes next. If this is what it’s doing to them now, what happens in 10, 20 years? What kind of adults will this generation become if we don’t step in?
This isn’t parenting as we knew it, it’s a whole new battlefield. Thank you for saying what so many of us are feeling: it’s time to fight back.
VR and AR is next. A few kids in our area have a Meta Quest headset strapped on 8-12 hours a day ... any moment they're not in school. And my kids and plenty of others on our block who I overhear are pushing their parents hard to get one.
Absolutely. This situation is already unfolding, and it’s accelerating rapidly. While phones and tablets capture attention, VR headsets pull people into alternate realities. These kids aren’t simply zoning out; they’re vanishing into digital worlds for 8, 10, or even 12 hours a day. This isn’t just imagination, it’s a form of detachment.
The Meta Quest isn’t a mere toy; it’s a powerful immersive system designed to keep kids engaged for prolonged periods. When a child prefers to live behind a headset rather than participate in their own life, that should be a significant concern not just another item on their Santa wish list.
Parents need to take a moment to reflect on what we are allowing our children to engage with because this issue goes beyond just screen time. It concerns our children losing touch with what it truly means to be human.
Very alarming and comprehensive overview. Internet Gaming Disorder is a serious threat that requires parents to enforce unpopular rules. The internet has an on/off switch.
I am a 16-year-old from Malaysia, and my life was stolen by the internet.
At 8 years old, I clicked on a ROBLOX ad. That single click set off a chain reaction of addiction, exploitation, and psychological damage that nearly destroyed me. By 11, I was exposed to hardcore pornography. By 12, I was groomed in Discord servers by older teens who normalized degeneracy. By 15, I was a full-blown porn addict, psychologically dependent on virtual avatars, and pouring money into predatory games designed to addict children.
This was not an accident.
The algorithms knew exactly what they were doing. The platforms knew exactly how to hook me. And the worst part? My parents had no idea. They thought I was just "playing games." They didn’t know I was being radicalized, sexualized, and psychologically rewired in real time.
The pandemic turned a crisis into a catastrophe. Locked inside, unsupervised, I was fed an endless stream of dopamine hits, porn, and toxic online relationships. My brain changed. My personality changed. My future changed.
I am not an outlier. I am the blueprint.
After years of struggle, I’ve managed to escape—11 months clean, no gaming, no social media, no porn. I lift weights. I read books. I sleep like a human again. But most kids won’t be this lucky. They’ll stay trapped, their brains pickled in instant gratification, their attention spans obliterated, their capacity for real life erased.
Parents, listen carefully:
Your child is not "just playing games." They are being trained—by billion-dollar corporations—to crave stimulation, hate boredom, and seek validation in pixels.
Your child is not "safe" because you live outside the West. The algorithms are global. The damage is universal.
Your child will not "grow out of it." This is a neurological crisis. The longer they’re exposed, the harder it is to reverse.
This is not a phase. This is an emergency.
If you care about your child’s future, you must act now. Delete the apps. Lock down the devices. Say no. Because if you don’t, the machines will raise your child—and they will do a monstrous job of it.
I won’t be reading replies. This is my only warning. The storm is here. Get your kids out while you still can.
Wow! Thank you for this VERY complete and thoughtful and informed analysis. As a gamer for more than 30 years, there was much about the contemporary scene that I had missed, since I had discovered that "free-to-play" cost more than conventional RPGs. My thought about the addictive nature of MMORPGs has always been that if we'd had these options when I was a kid, I never would have completed college, not to mention my post-graduate studies. That said, adults who have never tried RPGs or even strategy gaming are missing some really neat entertainments, and I think they also help you keep your brain sharp in retirement. But you DO need good self-control and lots of other relationships to keep your habits healthy. I hope we can find ways to police this new genre without distilling out the fun. And I totally agree with limiting phone use for youngsters.
Really insightful comment! I totally agree that there is a place for video games (I enjoy the occasional game myself!). But when there's money, kids and a clear misalignment in profit motives and child-use, something has to change.
As an active PTA parent/member, I'd like to request After Babel a communications toolkit for how to advocate with School admin, district leaders, and families regarding this conversation. I shared this and other articles but would like to encourage this to be a continuous dialogue. The comment section here is interesting and it needs to be dissiminated on larger scale to make an impact. I'm willing to connect with the authors on how to move the conversation into the tables of needed stakeholders.
Would also love this. A big obstacle is that the National PTA is itself funded by some of the worst offenders: Meta, TikTok, Discord, YouTube and others. This is a huge conflict of interest and it's no coincidence that National PTA's digital safety resources significantly downplay the risks these platforms pose to minors, instead consistently portraying youth screen use in a positive way.
What a terrific article. I will make sure to include some of its key points in the presentation I’ll give to parents about the harms of screens at the start of the next school year. Many thanks to the author.
My daughter is an avid builder in Minecraft offline. Recently she requested to open a Roblox account and play with friends online, because, “all my friends are playing it Daddy”. I was skeptical and said I had to research it first. Your article was timely! I don’t think we will be online with this game.
Thank you for your reporting. This is all incredibly disturbing. Another reason to keep my kids off tablets and smartphones. Luckily, they are still young, and because of reporting like yours, I have the ability to head things off.
I am a grandmother, retired teacher, who does not know much about gaming, excepting seeing my grandsons on it, the youngest most avidly. Sitting beside him I see him flip back-and-forth through screens so quickly, which are advertisements, others I'm sure are the payment opportunities. I don't think his parents have really sat down, seeing all that is going on.
I did read through all of your article just to better inform myself if possible. And, in addition to this most importantly is the attention you're giving to kids just on screens, in general, this stealing away there immediate touch with life. You knowing that the phones and the electronic devices, such as Chromebook, are all limiting the thinking abilities, the true thinking and discovering and integrative mental abilities of children, we handing over so much of our lives to the manipulation by non-human forces. We are in big trouble and a huge restoration of life to the living must continue and succeed.
I’m right there with you, I'm another grandma watching this unfold with growing concern. What you described sitting beside your grandson, I’ve seen the same thing. It’s not just entertainment anymore, it’s constant stimulation, manipulation, and distraction and most parents don’t realize how deep it goes.
You said it so well: we’re handing over our children’s minds to forces that don’t care about their growth or wellbeing. The hardest part is knowing how much has already been lost… but like you said, we must restore what it means to really live.
Grateful for your voice, we need more of us speaking up.
Thank you, Kim. So great to hear from a similar heart and mind. Yes, we all need to speak up more, so may that happen.
🙏
While this has taken over children's lives, it is the same happening in schools. Ever since the industrial revolution we've had industrialized education forcing children to give up their intuitive connection to life and focus only on fact, numbers, and letters, this hiked up terribly by tech. Those here with learning differences are wired toward what we have left behind in ourselves: inspiration, insight, passions, and life connection instead of separation and isolation. I'm retired, but am still striving to awaken education: www.heartcenteredminds.com.
all I care about is that you please share this with their parents and make them read it.
It is amazing how much of this I didn’t know. We try to be aware of what our kids are playing and our oldest stopped the online games and social on his own saying it is a waste of time but it is so addictive!
Important for people to know: Boston Children's Digital Wellness Lab, which many families see as a trusted source of digital safety advice, is FUNDED BY ROBLOX.
https://digitalwellnesslab.org/supporters/
Michael Rich, founder of the Roblox-backed Digital Wellness Lab, has said: “There should be no time limits on screens because that leads to deprivation and rebellion.” Michael Rich also helped draft the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2016 screen time guidelines, which, in a departure from the previous guidelines, no longer recommend any specific screen limits for children over the age of 5.
The guidelines: "It can be tempting to want a set number of hours on screens that is “safe” or healthy to guide your family’s technology use. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough evidence demonstrating a benefit from specific screen time limitation guidelines."
https://www.aap.org/en/patient-care/media-and-children/center-of-excellence-on-social-media-and-youth-mental-health/qa-portal/qa-portal-library/qa-portal-library-questions/screen-time-guidelines/
We have to start calling out these conflicts of interest. Would we trust dietary advice from a doctor or health organization who was funded by Burger King? Of course not. This is no different.
Actually, the American Heart Association and other groups like it are funded by major brands, something I learned about on the Honestly Podcast by Bari Weiss.
There’s a long history of companies funding studies or backing groups to support findings favorable to a product, going back at least a hundred years. Sugar, carbs.
The whole “butter and animal fats bad” is also a victim of similar movements that demonized healthy fats and favored manufactured ones, like margarine, Oleo, etc. Once you know it’s hard to un-know.
As someone who's been making games for 20 years now, this is something I've talked about regularly. While World of Warcraft may seem like the starting point to many (there were MUDD games prior - endless text based RPGs), I put the point at Facebook games. That was when straight up gambling mechanics were introduced. The techniques were then amplified in much of mobile gaming (which hooks adults as well)
The GaaS mobile is prevalent and the most popular games are ~8 years old now, meaning new games are having trouble catching on. You rightly mention that there is good/educational content on Roblox, but also there is plenty of bad
A knock-on effect issue is the games industry itself has become somewhat stagnant. GaaS games have hurt creativity in the AAA space as major publishers have become over reliant on them
Some potential good news, on the whole, is there is a drive by players for more bespoke content so AA/iii games have been making a comeback. Those games tend to be more traditional with an upfront cost and finite playtime based around a story
But games like Roblox, Fortnite, etc remain extremely popular with kids and the streaming community. So if kids are watching Twitch or Youtube they can easily find streamers playing those games which, in turn, gets the kids to want to play
Parents need to be cognizant of what their kids are playing and understand what the games are. Best thing to do is get them a Switch (or Switch 2) and play games with them and let them play their own. There's a lot of great and fun games there that don't have the GaaS game systems embedded
(There's a lot more to this topic and I have tons of additional thoughts, but I'm on vacation so wanted to keep it brief)
Great insights Drew, totally agree. Although we did not mention FB games here. They certainly popularized so many of these trends in a big way.
Thank you, Bennett and Zach. This post is essential reading, and your title is a statement I wish all parents would take to heart. Do some games have a place for some kids? Sure. But today's games almost always have a family impact trade-off of some kind related to conflict, content, and compulsivity. Parents, please carefully weigh the costs by doing research, playing the game (our 7-day rule), and making it clear up front that you can remove the game anytime.
Other small notes for parents: If an app-based game has an ad-free version, highly consider it. Paying the $0.99 to remove ads, which don't obey the age-rating of the game, is often worth it. I've received hundreds of messages from parents whose kids were exposed to explicit ads in games made "for kids." Don't allow kids to play games outside of their age-rating. Even at 12+ in the Apple App Store, Roblox is highly problematic, yet it's played by millions of elementary-aged children. And, you might consider a no-headphone rule for multi-player gameplay.
Yeah, there are no rules. Parental controls don't work. When set, on Apple for example, your kids cannot install a game above their age rating BUT they can still see them all and they can still request permission to install it, triggering a notification to the parent to decline or approve. And the ads seen in games do not correspond to the age settings. e.g. my kids playing 8 and under games but seeing boobs and bdsm type ads.
This is incredibly important stuff.
I touched on a subset of this problem in my Substack essay "why I fell out of love with Hermitcraft".
Keep up the good work After Babel team!
As a mom and grandma, this makes me furious. We handed our kids a weapon disguised as a toy and now we’re watching the fallout in real time. Their childhoods, their mental health, their very sense of self are being hijacked by systems that were never designed to protect them.
What scares me most is what comes next. If this is what it’s doing to them now, what happens in 10, 20 years? What kind of adults will this generation become if we don’t step in?
This isn’t parenting as we knew it, it’s a whole new battlefield. Thank you for saying what so many of us are feeling: it’s time to fight back.
VR and AR is next. A few kids in our area have a Meta Quest headset strapped on 8-12 hours a day ... any moment they're not in school. And my kids and plenty of others on our block who I overhear are pushing their parents hard to get one.
Absolutely. This situation is already unfolding, and it’s accelerating rapidly. While phones and tablets capture attention, VR headsets pull people into alternate realities. These kids aren’t simply zoning out; they’re vanishing into digital worlds for 8, 10, or even 12 hours a day. This isn’t just imagination, it’s a form of detachment.
The Meta Quest isn’t a mere toy; it’s a powerful immersive system designed to keep kids engaged for prolonged periods. When a child prefers to live behind a headset rather than participate in their own life, that should be a significant concern not just another item on their Santa wish list.
Parents need to take a moment to reflect on what we are allowing our children to engage with because this issue goes beyond just screen time. It concerns our children losing touch with what it truly means to be human.
There’s a sci-fi movie for that: Surrogates, 2009
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates
Very alarming and comprehensive overview. Internet Gaming Disorder is a serious threat that requires parents to enforce unpopular rules. The internet has an on/off switch.
This is so dystopian and sick. I’m stunned that this is legal.
I am a 16-year-old from Malaysia, and my life was stolen by the internet.
At 8 years old, I clicked on a ROBLOX ad. That single click set off a chain reaction of addiction, exploitation, and psychological damage that nearly destroyed me. By 11, I was exposed to hardcore pornography. By 12, I was groomed in Discord servers by older teens who normalized degeneracy. By 15, I was a full-blown porn addict, psychologically dependent on virtual avatars, and pouring money into predatory games designed to addict children.
This was not an accident.
The algorithms knew exactly what they were doing. The platforms knew exactly how to hook me. And the worst part? My parents had no idea. They thought I was just "playing games." They didn’t know I was being radicalized, sexualized, and psychologically rewired in real time.
The pandemic turned a crisis into a catastrophe. Locked inside, unsupervised, I was fed an endless stream of dopamine hits, porn, and toxic online relationships. My brain changed. My personality changed. My future changed.
I am not an outlier. I am the blueprint.
After years of struggle, I’ve managed to escape—11 months clean, no gaming, no social media, no porn. I lift weights. I read books. I sleep like a human again. But most kids won’t be this lucky. They’ll stay trapped, their brains pickled in instant gratification, their attention spans obliterated, their capacity for real life erased.
Parents, listen carefully:
Your child is not "just playing games." They are being trained—by billion-dollar corporations—to crave stimulation, hate boredom, and seek validation in pixels.
Your child is not "safe" because you live outside the West. The algorithms are global. The damage is universal.
Your child will not "grow out of it." This is a neurological crisis. The longer they’re exposed, the harder it is to reverse.
This is not a phase. This is an emergency.
If you care about your child’s future, you must act now. Delete the apps. Lock down the devices. Say no. Because if you don’t, the machines will raise your child—and they will do a monstrous job of it.
I won’t be reading replies. This is my only warning. The storm is here. Get your kids out while you still can.
Wow! Thank you for this VERY complete and thoughtful and informed analysis. As a gamer for more than 30 years, there was much about the contemporary scene that I had missed, since I had discovered that "free-to-play" cost more than conventional RPGs. My thought about the addictive nature of MMORPGs has always been that if we'd had these options when I was a kid, I never would have completed college, not to mention my post-graduate studies. That said, adults who have never tried RPGs or even strategy gaming are missing some really neat entertainments, and I think they also help you keep your brain sharp in retirement. But you DO need good self-control and lots of other relationships to keep your habits healthy. I hope we can find ways to police this new genre without distilling out the fun. And I totally agree with limiting phone use for youngsters.
Really insightful comment! I totally agree that there is a place for video games (I enjoy the occasional game myself!). But when there's money, kids and a clear misalignment in profit motives and child-use, something has to change.
As an active PTA parent/member, I'd like to request After Babel a communications toolkit for how to advocate with School admin, district leaders, and families regarding this conversation. I shared this and other articles but would like to encourage this to be a continuous dialogue. The comment section here is interesting and it needs to be dissiminated on larger scale to make an impact. I'm willing to connect with the authors on how to move the conversation into the tables of needed stakeholders.
Would also love this. A big obstacle is that the National PTA is itself funded by some of the worst offenders: Meta, TikTok, Discord, YouTube and others. This is a huge conflict of interest and it's no coincidence that National PTA's digital safety resources significantly downplay the risks these platforms pose to minors, instead consistently portraying youth screen use in a positive way.
https://www.pta.org/home/About-National-Parent-Teacher-Association/Sponsors-Partners
Yikes! What a landmine! Follow the money!
What a terrific article. I will make sure to include some of its key points in the presentation I’ll give to parents about the harms of screens at the start of the next school year. Many thanks to the author.
I am shocked and saddened by this. I have never allowed internet games in my home, but I had no idea it was this bad!
My daughter is an avid builder in Minecraft offline. Recently she requested to open a Roblox account and play with friends online, because, “all my friends are playing it Daddy”. I was skeptical and said I had to research it first. Your article was timely! I don’t think we will be online with this game.
Thank you for your reporting. This is all incredibly disturbing. Another reason to keep my kids off tablets and smartphones. Luckily, they are still young, and because of reporting like yours, I have the ability to head things off.