Whatever way we look at it, or want to look at it, Virtual Words are currently dominated by kids. Rough estimates tell us about 5 in 6 users of virtual Worlds are kids/teens. Marketers seem to jump at the chance to market to these kids, catch them at an early stage to develop a relationship for life with their product. Teens are harder to reach outside he internet - they don’t read papers, hardly any magazines and television is losing its grip on them. Children/teens are also more easily entertained - give them a gaming goal, their favourite Disney figures or other cute cartoons and a ‘fun’, viral environment is born.
However, Second Life seems to ‘miss out’ on the action. Linden Labs has moved all children under the age of 18 to a separate ‘grid’ (world) - the Teen Grid. This Teen Grid has a user base of about 5,000 users and seems to have lost most of its growth already - while other teen worlds are still growing. The Teen grids lack of popularity amongst youngsters is not just the fact they are disconnected from the ‘main event’. Second Life’s unique selling points and ‘adult’ approach simply won’t appeal to children, there is a difficult verification process and the word Second Life strikes fear in most parents hearts, linking it to most of the bad publicity it has received over the past years.
Teens of Second Life have already partitioned the Lindens (employees of Linden Labs) to place the Teen Grid on the same server as the adult part Second Life. However, Linden labs is facing several difficulties in doing so. First is the fear of these minors being exposed to adult material, right now, Second Life still does quite a poor job at separating mature content from ‘parent approved’ content. Sex clubs are happily mixed with living areas or shopping malls for instance - running into an adult themed place seems almost unavoidable to anyone spending over a few hours on-line.
Second problem is exposing the teens/children to ‘adult predators’. The adults with malicious intentions, taking advantage of these kids. Both sexually as well as financially. Linden Labs fears the repercussions of the next ‘mishap’ Second Life causes. Tensions are already high between the ‘community of parenthood’ and Linden Labs ever since a German newspaper started their manhunt for links between the Virtual World and child pornography.
Solving the Dilemma
The solution I want to add to the numerous suggestions is not 2 separate grids, or even a third - but 2 separate clients. One for adults, uncensored and access to all areas, and one Teen Client, automatically removing adult content from searches, unable to enter sims rated ‘mature’, parental tracking tools, even chat filtering/censoring. This way teens are still part of Second Life with restricted access to its content, but still able to to visit the educational sites and ‘PG’ (non-mature) sims in general.
Of course the solution isn’t perfect, but neither is the solution currently in place. Teens in Second Life could add to the economy, and be a part of the interesting events and global development of the software instead of having their own, isolated island. The separate Teen Grid sounds like a playground for any ‘predator’ able to verify him/herself as a teen. Kids on the main grid can be a lot less ‘recognisable’ as being an actual minor. An adult looking avatar will blend in with the others and it will be a lot harder for any ‘predator’ to single out their targets. Last but not least, lets not pretend the teens aren’t on the main grid already. However, Linden Labs can hide behind the violation of terms of service (“Don’t say we didn’t warn you”) should anything go wrong with them - this is purely a juridical solution.
The necessity of a ‘complete grid’
Over the next few years, it will be obvious children between the age of 14 and 17 will be the ‘digitally adopted’ generation. They will move trough 3d environments like a second nature, have disposable income and are out to buy stuff on-line. Television and print media will be unable to reach them and hours spend online by this generation will see a significant increase. Games and Virtual Worlds are going to fill a large part of this gap between media and the ‘Digitally Adopted’. Linden Labs is going to miss out if they don’t start with providing a solution other than complete separation today.
Posted on: January 7, 2008 | Share on:
Rheta Shan
said on January 7th
Dear Rick,
a very interesting and pragmatic approach to one of the major sores of the Linden concept, the segregation of teens from the main SL population. Not only is this bad business for LL (as the growth of teen worlds like Habbo hotel seems to show), it also is something we, the residents, should consider counterproductive, as it effectively prevents many hugely talented, bright, interested young people from contributing to our world until they get fed up with it and give up. Viz. the case of Katharine Berry, 15-year old creator of the AjaxLife web client, maybe the most terrific piece of web software I have run into , period, who has all but left Second Life, and would have left entirely hadn’t it been for the pleas of the users of her service. I don’t know how viable a world can be that turns its back on future talent.
Rick van der Wal
said on January 7th
Hello Retha,
Amazing article you wrote there, a very convincing case for allowing the Teens on the main grid, approached from a different angle.
However, I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s ‘our’ responsibility as well - I think this is just one of those executive decisions, where someone within LL will have to make a decision on how to create a system which covers both Linden Labs legally, protects the user (both child and adults on the grid), and allows for these teenage users to integrate into the Second Life community in a responsible manner. I firmly believe if they won’t do it, another company will do it for them eventually.
A lot of the reasons Katherine Berry lists for leaving are a result of this executive decision. There is no budget for marketing the Teen Grid (no site updates), its all in the shadow of the main application. Linden Labs doesn’t want to market SL as a game/ playground/ chatbox to attract these teens and apparently missed the significance of addressing them as potential, influential customers of the future.
Thank you for commenting and linking the AjaxLife client, I have never seen it before, needless to say I was very impressed :)
Rheta Shan
said on January 7th
Hallo Rick,
I’m glad you liked the article,and pointing people to Katharine’s amazing work is always a pleasure.
You are right, of course, to say that it will ultimately be an executive decision inside LL to merge the Grids somehow — there is no other way to create an entirely reliable and safe solution but to have the Lindens enforce it server side. When I said it is « our » responsibility, I meant to say we should not wait for some turn of business or change of mind of King philip to get the Lindens moving, but should muster support for that move in the user community. There has been a very sad tendency there to smugly underline that « teens aren’t meant to be on the main grid anyway » during the whole discussion preceding the Integrity fiasco, in effect urging for even stricter segregation, and I was arguing mainly against that point of view. But approaching the problem from the client side, as you propose, would in fact make it user solvable, at least until teh Lindens implement a better system, as the viewer is open source and anyone competent enougth could build a « safe for teens » viewer from the Linden one. After all, there are others suited to the special needs of certain communities out there already (Marine Kelley’s RestrainedLife viewer springs to mind).
Rick van der Wal
said on January 7th
“There has been a very sad tendency there to smugly underline that « teens aren’t meant to be on the main grid anyway » during the whole discussion preceding the Integrity fiasco, in effect urging for even stricter segregation, and I was arguing mainly against that point of view.”
I see, well I can certainly agree to that, it sounds like users making the same mistake the Lindens are (I haven’t witnessed this myself), underestimating the potential of the young(er) user base. Though in all fairness, I called this the Linden Dilemma because there are two sides two this story. Opening up the main grid for teens - at this stage, without some sort of significant change to the grid, the client or something else (such as the dreaded age verification program) would be a big mistake, and so far no solution has been perfect.
I think this has to do with a lot of vagueness surrounding Virtual Worlds - in laws and responsibility. All solutions would have some sort of ‘risk’ and no one has been able to set the standards yet. Before you can make a business decision, you have to know whats acceptable, when are you putting profit and potential above the safety of your users, and when are you making a responsible decision that will result in a win/win situation.
It would be interesting to see if there is another whizkid in the (Teen) community who could have a crack at providing a prototype/alpha model of a ‘teen safe client’ (I am no scripter so I have no idea what of my proposed functions would be writable within the open source client). This would certainly nudge Linden Lab, perhaps serve as a wake up call to their obvious problem.
Rheta Shan
said on January 7th
Basically, any kind of restrictions from the usual behaviour of the viewer can be implemented. That is exactly what Marine’s RestrainedLife viewer does : it is a special client based on the Liden sources meant to enhance bondage and captivity play by interacting with scripted items in world so as to forbid the user to do some things : it can blindfold you, make attachments undetachable, hobble or immobilize you… you get the idea :).
Building a viewer along these lines, which would make it impossible to move, or move your camera for that matter, into non PG areas, should not be too hard for a gifted programmer. Maybe one could add in-world support, too, like a script that if dropped in a prim would flag that prim only as non-PG, thus excluding it from display in the safe viewer. Ah well ~sighs~, the Lindens would still have to change the ToS, but you’re right, it would be a tremendous nudge.
Ta a lot for your thoughts; it has been a very interesting conversation :).
Katharine Berry
said on January 7th
Having arrived here via a link in Rheta’s Twitter thingy (what are we supposed to call those anyway?), I may as well add a few comments.
Firstly, LL already have the “teen” client - the server tells the client if it’s on the TG, and if it is the following are disabled:
The “Web” profile tab
The “1st Life” profile tab
The “About” section of the 2nd Life tag
Various text inputs in the “Interests” section
Ability to remove underpants and undershirts - the tabs aren’t visible in the appearance editor, and attempting to remove then any other way crashes the client without applying the change (although there’s an option in the “Client” menu carried over from god mode that disables this)
Ability to access regions marked as Mature (Attempts to do so fail. Successful attempts disconnect you.)
Secondly, there are rumours (e.g. “Blue [Linden] says that they’re working on project Kill the Teen Grid”) to the effect that (at some point) in the forseeable future, either communication/object transfer between grids will be permitted, or the TG will simply become part of the MG.
So there might be LL support - and the client already exists, and indeed has done since 2005. They just “need to get age verification sorted” first. Of course, rumours from LL rarely happen on time. :P
And it’s not a huge ToS change - it’s two sentences removed - with huge effect. :P
Katharine Berry
said on January 7th
Grumble. Your blog wiped out my list formatting.
Rheta Shan
said on January 7th
Katharine, we’re supposed to call them « tweets ». Ta for the info on TG implementation :).
Rick van der Wal
said on January 7th
Evil Wordpress ;)
Its good to hear the client is already out there - thank you for pointing that one out to me!
I’ve heard about Blue Linden before, in SecondCast with the 2 editors at holymeatballs.org I think - but its unclear how much of a voice he/she represents within Linden Labs.
So we know the Lindens are divided on this one, but even if the rumours are true, communication and object sharing is not enough. Its sending the wrong message to all Teens who could potentially be involved in the development of the metaverse. Would you rather be in a world which considers you of equal value, or a world that separates you from the the ‘main’ part of the network?
This is part of the reason why the Teen grid is barely growing, while other teen worlds seem to be doing extremely well. (This and the fact a lot of minors will choose to create a maingrid account anyhow).
Nice having you over here Katharine, thank you so much for commenting!
Rheta Shan
said on January 7th
Katharine,
I fully support what Rick said. There should be more than a communication between the grids. You and others your age have a right to be in our world as equals.
10 Reasons why kids dominated VW08 | Digado said on April 8th
[...] I posted ‘The Teen Dilemma’ it was already obvious how Linden Labs was missing out on the big potential for the next couple of [...]
Jasper
said on August 20th
Hey,
The problem I have with TSL is getining register for it.. My parents dont have paypal and will not set it up.. and we one of the few americans with out a cell phone so only way i can experence SL is on the main grid…
I one of a group of teens who choose to stay out of the mature content areas cause we know how adult will react if they know our true age, plust half of us play kid size avatars..
I have a free account and make my $L by doing DJ gigs
But because of the fear of being banded i give my older brother (who is over 18) anything i want to have in the case. I transfer to him $L regualr and rarely keep more then 1000$l on me , and usely only have more if i want to buy something. I am on my second account since my first one was banded nearly a year ago.
I dont talk about RL on SL, Im just my avatar on SL, and since i am a real kid i do it rather well..
Couple problems i see with joining the 2 grids (which could be cool) is :
1> The same problem of teens on other adult/Teen places. You never know if they are who they say in RL or not. You never really know unless you meet them for real, and I not that stupid! and i hate it when people think i am.
2> Will SL flag these teen avatars as teens? Then we will have little toys that can hunt out teens just like you can for age verified users… :P
3> It would be nice to be a teen with my age group or people who want to be a teen and act that way… some of my best SL friends ae adults(?) who play kid AVs…
Something about me in SL that might be interested in..
1> My skin i use have underware painted on it… I never get naked out of choice.
2> I do get hit appond and flirted with, I am a cute boy they say. I just tell them i’m not interested and they leave me alone. and the ignore rarely used. I only had to complain a couple times to the owners of the land i am on about it and they get banded from the land.
Jasper the DJ Fox :)
Merging the Teen Grid with SL - Update 1 « Daniel Voyager’s Blog said on January 21st
[...] Linden lab dilemma teen-grid [...]
Boratis
said on March 16th
Linden Research Inc. has numerous problems outside of marketing to 14-17 year old kids. Linden needs to sit down and read Seth’s book first of all. If they believe they’re going to create the next best thing since sliced bread to teenagers by merging hte Grid, they effectively shoot themselves in the foot.
You’ve said that the Teen Grid has pretty much stopped growing at about 5,000 users. The Main Grid has grown far beyond that size user base. In fact, the Main Grid has grown so much that Linden Research, and the 3.5 billion line code base to be so un-extensible and un-flexible and fragile, the code is holding them back.
Couple this with a corporate behavior of what is termed in Interaction Design, “painting the corpse” (making bad code look pretty), the Main Grid is nearly to the point of collapse.
Linden Research is doing exactly what you suggest — preparing to merge the Main and Teen Grids together so corporate America can try and fail to market to the 14-17 market (a market that by its nature has no money but that given to them by Mom and Dad or earned in part-time jobs). They’ve chose to listen to those 5,000 users instead of the 60,000 or more who made the company what it is today.
They’ll build their second client and put controls in to prevent display of what they deem “inappropriate” and some kid (or kids) will be exploited or harmed. They’ll build further on their bad code base (slather some more lipstick on that pig, LRI!), which will be poorly integrated and poorly implemented — as they have done in the past. And proptly and effeciently shoot themselves in the foot in the process (also something they are adept at).
I wish them luck. They’re going to need it. Corporate spin and blowing sunshine up the *sses of their current customer base is not going to save them from the bankruptcy that’s going to come.
silvertounge Littlebird
said on January 24th
As a Teen In teen grid I dont appreciate the client, or the fact that when you sign up for sl, you tend to have to recieve texts. My first account on sl was a compleately different title, i tried two more acconts after that, not knowing, that my mom accedently blocked recieving texts for me when people kept sending pranks, not crutial, but after like four accounts later i relised the problem but couldn’t create another account for there was a limit i would like to know more about sl but as a teen i will not violate rules and go to main grid i eventually got this but after two mounths.
the client is really annoying for me so it has to be for others too so please accept that theres problems in the linden lab and leave it at that