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"In the middle of a playdate with one of his best buddies a few months ago, my then-8-year-old came over and asked me how to spell penguin.  &amp;quot;Penguin?&amp;quot; I asked, puzzled. &amp;quot;As in Mr. Popper&amp;#039;s Penguins?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;No,&amp;quot; Jake clarified. &amp;quot;As in Club Penguin. We want to play, but we can&amp;#039;t get to the Website.&amp;quot; And just like that, my third grader&amp;#039;s age of digital innocence ended, as both of us dove headfirst into the junior cyber-social world. And I do mean both of us. Because after Jake went to bed that night (giddy with excitement over the creation of his penguin alter ego \u2014 or &amp;quot;avatar&amp;quot;), I decided I needed to find out just what was going on in those millions of online igloos that have kids so addicted. Aimed at ages 6 to 14, the Disney-owned Club Penguin may be one of the most popular kids&amp;#039; sites, but it&amp;#039;s hardly the only one. These new virtual worlds, like Poptropica and Barbie Girls, are part social networking, part online game, part Saturday-morning cartoon \u2014 and they&amp;#039;re everywhere. There are currently more than 100 children&amp;#039;s social-networking sites either live or in development. By 2010, projects Nic Mitham, CEO of K Zero, a virtual-worlds consultancy firm, 150 million children will be members of one of them. These sites generally sell themselves to parents as safe, convivial places for kids to play, learn, and make friends. But I wanted to find out exactly what Jake would be experiencing in this icy paradise. So I opened my own account at Club Penguin (I call it CP) and created my avatar, ChilyLily437, a bright-eyed, hot-pink go-getter with her own digital igloo and cyber hangouts \u2014 and even the potential to buy an online wardrobe. Via this character, I virtually sunbathed, snow tubed, and even picked up my daily cup of joe at CP&amp;#039;s answer to Starbucks. And by typing in cartoonlike speech bubbles, I mingled with waddling hordes of other penguins. During my two-week mission, I did find four serious surprises \u2014 both good and bad. Here&amp;#039;s what you should know before you let your kids out into the cyber snow. 1. A Virtual Playground Is Still a Playground Given the stats, I expected CP to be hopping, but I was awestruck at just how packed with penguins it was. After I logged on, I was prompted to select from more than a hundred chat rooms with names like Snow Angel and Polar Bear. Though many were full, I managed to snag a spot in Blizzard, and was teleported into a bustling cyber community. Scores of penguins surrounded me, and a mushroom cloud of cartoon bubbles hovered as everyone seemed to be talking at once. Some penguins were declaiming to the masses; some huddled in private conversations; some walked furry pet &amp;quot;puffles.&amp;quot; Here&amp;#039;s what ensued when ChilyLily approached three cheery-looking penguins. ME: Hi, I am ChilyLily and I am KEWL DANCING PENGUIN 1: R not ME: Hannah Montana Rules DANCING PENGUIN 2: weirdo DANCING PENGUIN 3: we r going to a members only party ME: Can I come? DANCING PENGUIN 1: ewww No! ME: PLZ DANCING PENGUIN 2: (angry face) ME: (frowns)  DANCING PENGUIN 3: go away or I am reporting u &amp;quot;Reporting&amp;quot; means telling the CP powers-that-be that I&amp;#039;d been breaking the rules, which would have been untrue, but nonetheless, I took the hint and slunk away. Next: Why all play is not created equal The Good Since many kids today spend so little time with neighbors and friends, virtual worlds can give them a comforting sense of companionship \u2014 and not just in the digital realm. &amp;quot;Children make virtual friends, sure, but they also use these sites to meet and shore up their relationships with real-life friends,&amp;quot; says Yasmin Kafai, Ed.D., professor of learning sciences in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, who has been conducting research on tweens in virtual worlds. So even on actual playdates, kids may end up playing together online, since that&amp;#039;s the way they&amp;#039;re accustomed to socializing. And experts say social networking helps prepare youngsters for a lifetime online. &amp;quot;Young Web users grow up to be teen social networkers, IM users, and phone texters,&amp;quot; says Anne Collier, codirector of connectsafely.org. &amp;quot;So the earlier they learn appropriate behavior, the better.&amp;quot;  The Bad But just how appropriately are these avatars behaving? It&amp;#039;s true that Club Penguin, like many other sites, works overtime to keep the chat civil. CP filters out rude language and personal information, lets kids act as secret agents and report rule breakers, and provides monitors to discourage bad behavior. According to Lane Merrifield, cofounder of Club Penguin and executive vice president and general manager of Disney Online Studios, the filters are modified almost hourly to keep up with kids&amp;#039; changing slang. &amp;quot;We strive every day to improve and be the best, safest site out there,&amp;quot; he says.  Still, I saw cyber-savvy kids come up with all kinds of clever ways to evade these precautions, like putting consecutive words in separate cartoon bubbles (&amp;quot;I&amp;quot; &amp;quot;DO&amp;quot; &amp;quot;NOT&amp;quot; &amp;quot;LIKE&amp;quot; &amp;quot;YOU&amp;quot;). CP&amp;#039;s safeguards are updated so often that some of the talk and tactics I observed are already impossible \u2014 and probably more will be by the time this story is printed. But kids find a way. While many penguins were amicable, I was called &amp;quot;weirdo&amp;quot; twice and &amp;quot;nerd&amp;quot; three times, told to go away six times, and pummeled with snowballs and mean-face emoticons. (Merrifield explained that the site allows some words that can be negative \u2014 nerd, geek \u2014 if some kids identify themselves that way.) &amp;quot;It stands to reason that bullying happens in kids&amp;#039; virtual worlds,&amp;quot; says Collier, &amp;quot;because it happens in school and on the playground, too.&amp;quot; But in the virtual world, the inherent anonymity compounds the problem. &amp;quot;Kids may be much more likely to say things through an online avatar that they wouldn&amp;#039;t say in person,&amp;quot; says Debbie Glasser, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Richmond, VA, and founder of newsforparents.org. While kids also misbehave on the real playground, in cyberspace, they assume they&amp;#039;re anonymous, even invisible, and because the virtual world is &amp;quot;just a game,&amp;quot; they don&amp;#039;t feel the accountability \u2014 or guilt \u2014 they would in real life, where they have to confront their victims. 2. All Play Is Not Created Equal During my time on Club Penguin, I became a regular at the local pizzeria. I liked the clich\u00E9 Italian piano music, the cozy candlelit tables, and the brick oven; but mostly, I was fascinated by the friendly waiters who never, ever delivered my pizza. I was initially stumped over how I could have given my order to 16 different penguins and not have even a slice. But then I realized that these kids were only pretending to be waiters and waitresses. And they thought I was pretending to be a customer. We were playing an old-fashioned game of &amp;quot;let&amp;#039;s pretend&amp;quot; in a newfangled setting.  The Good Playing make-believe is part of the magic of being a kid, and Club Penguin&amp;#039;s fanciful locales, exotic costumes, and colorful avatars seem to invite it. From a parent&amp;#039;s perspective, the site is an innocent, welcome oasis in an online wasteland of XXX Websites and potentially risky teen social-networking forums. From a child&amp;#039;s perspective, it looks like a new, and highly accessorized, way to play. The Bad But unlike traditional imaginative play, CP and other sites generally don&amp;#039;t let kids dream up places like the Italian-restaurant scene \u2014 graphic designers do it for them. Merrifield says his team&amp;#039;s goal is to be the &amp;quot;stewards of creativity,&amp;quot; and pointed to the play in the pizzeria as a positive example. But I&amp;#039;m not convinced. Kids&amp;#039; opportunities to pretend creatively on these preconceived sites seem sadly limited, as they did in that caf\u00E9 (which appears to be meant more as a hangout than a place to play food server: Witness the lack of pizza!). And the sites&amp;#039; games aren&amp;#039;t fueled so much by children&amp;#039;s imaginations as by preprogrammed, circumscribed choices. &amp;quot;Creative play allows young children to digest life and make it their own. It&amp;#039;s an outlet for their creativity and an absolutely critical part of childhood,&amp;quot; states Joan Almon, director of the U.S. branch of Alliance for Childhood. But when kids spend hours in front of screens \u2014 TV, video game, or computer \u2014 they&amp;#039;re just absorbing other people&amp;#039;s stories and imaginations and not creating their own. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s resulted in a steady decline in children&amp;#039;s play,&amp;quot; says Almon, &amp;quot;and will have serious negative consequences for kids&amp;#039; cognitive, emotional, and physical development.&amp;quot; Next: How kids can become virtual materialists 3. Kids Can Become Virtual Materialists Club Penguin, like many similar sites, may bill itself as being all about collecting friends, but believe me, it&amp;#039;s about collecting a lot more than that. Like the sparkly pink evening gowns (600 coins), wide-screen TVs (5,000 coins), and Ice Castle igloo upgrades &amp;quot;crafted from the finest ice on Club Penguin&amp;quot; (5,100 coins) that I saw during my 14 days of penguinhood. Which is why ChilyLily437 decided to go to work. On CP, that means playing video games. Forty-five (excruciating) minutes of digital ice fishing later, I&amp;#039;d accumulated enough coins to get shopping. But when I tried to make my purchases, a message informed me that I couldn&amp;#039;t buy any of these items because I was not a member! However, I could become a member if I&amp;#039;d like ... for $58 a year (and I don&amp;#039;t think they were talking penguin money). The Good As CP&amp;#039;s Parent&amp;#039;s Guide points out, virtual-world economies give kids a taste of financial realities and responsibilities, and learning that earning comes before spending helps foster a good work ethic. The avalanche of appealing, if imaginary, merchandise teaches children about making financial choices and even basic math. As a teacher and a mom, I agree that CP can help kids learn these crucial life skills. And CP does not run outside advertisements. The Bad &amp;quot;Parents should never forget that most of these sites are moneymaking ventures,&amp;quot; warns Liz Perle, editor in chief of Common Sense Media. &amp;quot;The behavior they encourage \u2014 playing games to build up &amp;#039;money&amp;#039; kids can&amp;#039;t spend without paying real cash \u2014 is driven by commercial impulses.&amp;quot; So maybe I was naive, but I&amp;#039;m still not sure which part is most disturbing: (a) that Club Penguin is perpetuating such a materialistic mind-set; (b) that it&amp;#039;s bribing kids with cyber loot to play otherwise pointless video games all day; or (c) that it&amp;#039;s getting away with this bait-and-switch routine (&amp;quot;free Club Penguin account,&amp;quot; my flipper!). Or maybe worst is that, despite CP&amp;#039;s strict policies against it, so many kids have found off-site ways to cheat so they don&amp;#039;t have to &amp;quot;earn&amp;quot; coins or rewards at all. Regardless, the result is to spur kids&amp;#039; materialism, both online (as penguins) and off (as potential paying members). 4. In Cyberspace, Kids Grow Up Even Faster I&amp;#039;m not exaggerating when I say that at any given moment in any given location on Club Penguin, there&amp;#039;s someone saying &amp;quot;Cute girlz&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I like boyz&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Will u be my girlfriend?&amp;quot; \u2014 which is exactly what a penguin whom I&amp;#039;ll call Kingpizmo asked me one moonlit night in his igloo. We&amp;#039;d met earlier at the pizza parlor when I&amp;#039;d answered his open call for available girls. By the time we got to Kingpizmo&amp;#039;s crib (the Taj Mahal of igloos), we&amp;#039;d already swapped heart emoticons and &amp;quot;mwah mwahs&amp;quot; (kisses). We played a few rounds of &amp;quot;spin the fish&amp;quot; (a popular CP &amp;quot;kissing&amp;quot; game) before he popped the question, and I (trying not to think about how appalled Kingpizmo would be if he knew he&amp;#039;d just asked a married mother of four to go steady) accepted. The Good Try as I might, I&amp;#039;m having trouble seeing an upside here. The Bad  Of all my virtual-world surprises, I found CP&amp;#039;s sexual undercurrent by far the most shocking. Kafai was less surprised. &amp;quot;Flirting and dating are major parts of kids&amp;#039; virtual-world activity,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;The anonymity and lack of parental supervision make them favorite spaces for even tweens to act out sexual themes they see in the media and at the playground, even before they&amp;#039;re ready in real life.&amp;quot; But such cyber dating can actually hinder their ability to develop off-line relationships, says Marshall P. Duke, Ph.D., clinical psychologist at Emory University. &amp;quot;In the real world, people communicate in many ways \u2014 body language, facial expressions, gestures, and tone of voice. Not so in virtual worlds. But kids may think they understand relationships based on online experiences, and that can be damaging.&amp;quot; Next: Smart rules for virtual play Smart Rules for Virtual Play Realistically, we can&amp;#039;t raise Internet-free kids \u2014 nor should we. But here&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;ve learned about helping your child find a balance between virtual worlds and the real one.  Be his copilot. Understanding your kid&amp;#039;s virtual world is a must, even if it means going undercover yourself. Then go online with him as he explores the site. &amp;quot;You wouldn&amp;#039;t put your child in a car, hand him the keys, and say &amp;#039;See ya,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; says Perle. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t do it with the Internet.&amp;quot; Teach her how to act. Provide your kid with clear behavior guidelines for the virtual world, just as you do for the real one. &amp;quot;Before letting your child access a site, discuss how to be a good online friend,&amp;quot; says Patricia Agatston, Ph.D., coauthor of Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age. And make sure she knows how to recognize inappropriate behavior from others (like flirtation, questions about age, bullying) and will tell you if it happens so that you can report the offender to site authorities. Use parental controls and monitoring software. Protect your child while giving him the appropriate level of independence with Website parental controls (Club Penguin offers some excellent ones that allow parents to control when and for how long kids can use the site) and monitoring software (like those listed in the searchable database at getnetwise.org). Be up-front with kids from the start about keeping an eye on them. Say when (and mean it). Common Sense Media recommends waiting until your child&amp;#039;s eighth birthday before letting her join a social network. Once you do, the American Academy of Pediatrics advises limiting kids to no more than two hours a day of any kind of screen time. And balance it out with real face time with friends: These sites were never meant to replace going outside and playing.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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