The Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children (BBF) announced today the publication of their third eBook – Online Gaming: Tips for Protecting Children. School is out and children are spending more time with online devices and gaming consoles – so are child predators. This free eBook answers questions parents and caregivers have about the safety of online gaming by delving into what gaming looks like for children today, the risks of gaming in a hyper-connected world, and what adults can do to protect children from child predators online right now.
Each day there are an estimated 500,000 child predators online – a number that is likely to have grown since the quarantine measures started. According to a 2019 survey by Statista, 39% of online gamers were over 36-years-old. Instances of sextortion, sexploitation, and child sex trafficking have been linked to online gaming. Early exposure to adult content – from over-sexualized avatars to graphic violence – can have a profound impact on a child’s development. Child predators use online games to hunt, lure, and groom children for future abuse.
“Children have direct access to online games at their fingertips almost everywhere they go,” said Patricia Dailey Lewis, Esq., Executive Director of the Foundation. “The most troubling aspect of online gaming today is that children are having conversations, often very private and unsupervised conversations, with adults – perhaps a child predator – they do not know. Children don’t often understand that the people they meet online may not be who they say they are. This eBook will help families better understand the dangers that come with gaming online and encourage healthy conversations to help better protect children.”
In addition to outlining how predators gain access to children through video games, the eBook also includes information about the most common games children play online, and what you can do to ensure that those games are safe for children and teens.
Online Gaming: Tips for Protecting Children is available for free download now at www.BeauBidenFoundation.org/OnlineGaming.