WebKinz Week: Parent Feedback

As I mentioned yesterday, we are a WebKinz-free household. Little Miss Techie has not caught on to the WebKinz phenomenon as other children her age, and older, have. Since we don’t have any of the friendly furry creatures in our home, and therefore no access to WebKinz World, I asked parents from the DC Urban Moms listserv to share their experiences with WebKinz to help us answer Elise’s question.

Susan of Washington, D.C has a 7 year old daughter who owns 11 WebKinz. She admits to being skeptical about them being “gateway drugs” at first but has found that she doesn’t have to limit her daughter’s time on the computer since she doesn’t want to be online constantly. Susan says WebKinz has provided teachable moments that have given her opportunities to talk about password protection and the difference between controlled vocabulary chat and open chat. WebKinz chats are controlled since children can only choose words that are in their dictionary and pick from a selection of stock phrases to say to each other.

When she is online, Susan says her daughter enjoys

playing the arcade games, doing the Gem Hunt in the Curio Shop, and “shopping” for her animals. She also confesses to logging on and playing games to help her daughter win KinzCash. For anyone who is wondering, Susan is partial to Cash Cow. Susan says, “Like it or not, we live in a wired world, and I believe it’s healthy to expose children to it.”

Olivia, the mother of a 4 year old WebKinz owner in Upper Marlboro, MD, thinks is a great idea and says WebKinz world has built in controls that “discourage prolonged play.” Olivia says although there are many activities available for children to complete, there are restrictions where lots of activities can only be played once a day. For example, owners “can get their WebKinz a “job” but once they complete a job or fail a job, they can’t come back to the employment center for another 8 hours.” However, there are mini-games that can be played continuously in order to earn KinzCash. Olivia says, “The site boils down to playing games to make “money,” spending money in the store on food for the WebKinz and housewares and toys and taking care of them (through baths, laying them down for naps and playing games.”

Cindy, of Fairfax, VA, has two children (an almost 8 year old daughter and 9 1/2 year old son) who love WebKinz. Her daughter got her first WebKinz for her 7th birthday and now owns 27 of them. Cindy says, “She likes it when she gets a new pet to adopt and has to think of a name. A present ends up in her dock for the new pet and it’s fun to open it and see what they get. She also enjoys decorating their rooms, doing the games to win KinzCash, spinning the “Wheel of Wow” every day and visiting the “Charm Forest.”

Cindy describes games as educational since WebKinz World includes math and social studies games geared to specific age ranges. She does not believe that WebKinz leads to internet addiction. Her children have to ask permission to use the computer and she limits and monitors time spent on the computer.

Cindy doesn’t think that WebKinz can lead to internet addiction. Susan was originally concerned about the amount of time her daughter would be online but found her she doesn’t want to participate in WebKinz World constantly. Olivia mentioned that some games only enable owners to play them once every eight hours but others can be played non-stop.

While it appears that WebKinz have built in some controls into WebKinz World to prevent children from spending obscene amounts of time on the computer in their pet’s online world, WebKinz does serve as an entry into imaginary world games and massive multi-player online role playing games (MMORPG).

What are MMORPGs?  Should I worry about them?

Worry, no. Probably not at this point in time if your elementary school aged child is enjoying WebKinz World.

But absolutely be aware of them especially if your children are engaged in WebKinz World. You may find your child in WebKinz World today and World of Warcraft tomorrow.

Check back again tomorrow when I discuss MMORPGs and the potential dangers of imaginary world games so you can know what the future holds after WebKinz World.