Meta Platforms, the corporate parent of Facebook and Instagram, recently announced that it will allow children as young as 10 years old to access virtual reality through the Meta Quest headset. This decision has raised concerns about child safety and the potential harm that could arise from too much exposure to social media. The company, which oversees the social media empire created by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, stated that it will lower the minimum age for a Quest account from 13 years old to 10 years old later this year. This move is being marketed as a family-friendly way to encourage more people to explore artificial realms that Zuckerberg touts as the “metaverse.”
The decision to lure preteens into a virtual world filled with digital avatars and other technological fabrications comes just weeks after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called upon tech companies and lawmakers to take steps to protect children from the potentially harmful mental and emotional effects of too much exposure to social media. Facebook and Instagram have been criticized for using tactics that get kids hooked on social media at a young age, diverting their attention from real-life relationships with friends and families while exposing them to the risk of online bullying and abuse by sexual predators.
Meta has tried to address these concerns in its blog post, stating that parents will retain control over their children’s accounts for the Quest 2 and Quest 3 headsets. The company has also promised that preteen access will be limited to “age-appropriate” apps deploying virtual reality. Children will not be able to have a Quest account without explicit approval from their parents, and all apps used on the platform will require parental consent. The company recommends that children in this age group be limited to two hours of daily use of the headset.
Meta has also set all preteen accounts to a private setting by default and pledged not to show these users any ads that generate most of the company’s revenue. The company is providing parents with extensive guidance when assessing whether they should allow a 10- to -12-year-old to use a virtual reality headset. One section of the guide cites “a growing body of research examining the positive effects of VR in medical/clinical contexts, including interventions to support the development of social competence skills, to distract from painful or anxiety-inducing medical procedures, and to support specific skill development in specialized populations,” such as children with cerebral palsy.
By expanding the potential audience for the Quest, Zuckerberg appears to be taking another significant step toward his goal of sculpting the metaverse into a sphere that eventually will be as popular as Facebook and Instagram have become since he started the company in a college dorm room nearly 20 years ago. The metaverse has so far mostly been a digital ghost town, even though millions of Quest headsets have been sold. The Meta division that oversees the Quest headset and metaverse lost $13.7 billion last year while bringing in $2.2 billion in revenue.
Meta is also facing formidable new competition from Apple, which recently unveiled a headset called Vision Pro that is capable of thrusting users into virtual settings. The high-end headset, priced at $3,500, received enthusiastic responses in carefully staged demos, but it won’t be in stores until early next year. Meta has already announced that the next Quest headset will cost $500 as a way to entice more people to buy it before the Vision Pro is released and is now taking steps to get preteens on board.
Meta Platforms’ decision to lower the minimum age for a Quest account to 10 years old has sparked concerns about child safety and the potential harm that could arise from too much exposure to social media. Although the company has promised to take measures to limit preteen access to age-appropriate virtual reality apps and put control in the hands of parents, it remains to be seen whether these safeguards will be enough to protect children from the risks associated with social media. As the company seeks to expand its audience and compete with Apple’s Vision Pro, it will be important to monitor how these changes affect the safety and well-being of younger users.
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