Baby’s first Facebook
Social networks teach kids the value of a Zbuck
BY Terence Dick
Illustration by Dave Donald
Five years is a long time on the internet. It’s practically geological; the virtual landscape changes so dramatically. Over the next half decade, who can predict the plate tectonic shifts that will take the online community, our collective second life, away from current social networking hubs like MySpace and Facebook? Do you even remember Friendster (founded in 2002, usurped by MySpace in 2004)? What will come next? It’s a question that makes wallets throb and, for significantly different reasons, keeps me up at night. My daughter is only three, but already I’m wondering what she’s going to get up to on the web, and if I’ll approve. There is a plethora of networking websites dedicated to kids eight to 14. Just to find out what I’ll be up against, I decided to check them out.
From Neopets.com to Stardoll.com, social networks for kids are little online worlds where participants appear through cartoonish avatars and interact with one another. Each site has its own particular narrative, resources and special activities to entertain the young ones.
Trolling the parental portals for a number of these sites, I found the twin pillars of concern—safety and education—consistently promoted. While adults are allowed to participate (they are even encouraged to as a way of communicating with their kids and for grandparents or distant relatives to keep in touch), armies of monitors keep track of the goings-on, vigilant for any swearing, offensive material or stalker-like behaviour. On its banner headline, Imbee.com professes to be the “first secure social networking and blogging destination for kids.” Most of the discussion groups and blogs seem to be concerned with adolescent celebrities I’m too old to recognize. Others address typical tween interests like snowboarding and video games. Even if I had something to say on any of these topics, I’m too self-conscious to test the limits of what’s acceptable, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering how creepy I could be and how I’d be punished for crossing the line (exile, most likely). The fear of online abuse is real, if the frequency of incidence is not, so I, being the paranoid parent that I am, can’t fault these sites for keeping an eye on the kids.
Nor can I fault them for wanting to educate the little devils. How can I argue with the architects of Whyville.net when they seem so concerned with my child’s progress? Working to counter the tendency of children, especially girls, to lose interest in math and science during their pre-teen years, Whyville offers educational activities as a way to positively influence future academic and career choices. Is that any different than the arithmetic colouring books I had as a kid? I’m all in favour of using the tools at hand to develop curiosity, knowledge, thinking and communication skills.
But even on the seemingly noble, “educational” sites, the kids are being taught certain … how do you say? ideological lessons about the value of education and its rewards. In playing the site’s learning games, the citizens of Whyville earn “clams” and generate a functioning economy through their efforts. At Zwinky.com, Zwinktopia’s market relies on the circulation of Zbucks. Webkinz.com offers our children opportunities to earn Kinz cash, but they first have to get a job (through the site’s Employment Office, of course). The currency of the virtual town of Millsberry is the Millsbuck. The penguin avatars of Club Penguin earn coins so they can decorate their igloos with their choice of floorings. And the denizens of Habbo Hotel also use coins to get “furni” (furniture) and pets (essentially accessories).
Wal-Mart even attempted to muscle in on the market by creating a social networking site called The Hub, with the tagline, “School Your Way.” No surprise, it died a quick death; not even an eight year old would buy into a fantasy of rebellion, individuality and low cost, mass-produced consumer items.
Strangely, Disney’s Toontown online is the one network that offers a somewhat anti-consumerist bent in its narrative. Check this out, according to the site: “In Toontown, players, as Toons, join forces to save the world from the invading robot Cogs— humorless business robots who are attempting to turn the colourful, happy world of Toontown into a corporate metropolis.” Huh? Have Walt’s minions been reading Adbusters? You can’t escape the economy though, and even the citizens of Toontown must complete ToonTasks in order to refill their Laff meters and accessorize their dissent through—once again—interior design. Not only will the next generation be habituated to online consumerism, they will have a well-honed sense of e-feng shui.
I already have a hard enough time convincing my toddler that “shopping” is not a game, so I can only hope that by the time she’s old enough to surf the net, there’s something more than mall culture waiting for her. No wonder I can’t sleep at night.
