Are Children Ready for the Metaverse? The Minefield of Virtual Participation in Digital Social Spaces with Harmful Content and Behavior

The technological concept of the metaverse has the potential to change our society to an extent that can be compared with past inventions such as the internet. The risks and challenges it might bring for its users when participating are often neglected. Past experiences regarding social media or online gaming showed how such technologies can have negative effects on the psychological and physiological well-being of their users and that malicious individuals might abuse them. A user segment that is especially vulnerable in this context is the group of children and adolescents-youth. This study contains a detailed content analysis of two different metaverse applications regarding what types of child-inappropriate content or behavior exist there and reveals a number of serious concerns when children enter such digital virtual spaces. This paper addresses the types risks the use of the metaverse can pose for children and adolescents by creating a knowledge base derived from the current state of literature and interviews with experts. Additionally, it contributes to research by developing a classification scheme that helps to identify and categorize child-inappropriate content or behavior that occurs in metaverse spaces.