TY - GEN
T1 - Beyond Age-Based Restrictions
T2 - 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2026
AU - Panchanadikar, Ruchi
AU - Hu, Yang
AU - Guo, Keyan
AU - Hall, Amelia L.
AU - Hu, Hongxin
AU - Vishwamitra, Nishant
AU - Freeman, Guo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2026 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
PY - 2026/4/13
Y1 - 2026/4/13
N2 - Existing HCI literature on the benefits and risks of User-Generated Content (UGC) games for children often focuses on either parents' or child players' views. Bridging these perspectives is critical for identifying the alignment or divergence between children's and parents' concerns, which provides a more comprehensive image of challenges and opportunities children face in these games. Through a mixed-method content analysis of 2000 reviews about Roblox (one of the most popular UGC platforms) from both parents and children, we identify six key risks children face and investigate how parents' and children's focuses on different risks may shift across age groups. We also propose design recommendations for advancing trust and safety initiatives on UGC platforms by considering children, parents, and developers as key stakeholders. We contribute to rethinking more nuanced safety models for protecting children that are developmentally responsive and context-sensitive, rather than relying on age-based thresholds (e.g., under-13 vs. 13+).
AB - Existing HCI literature on the benefits and risks of User-Generated Content (UGC) games for children often focuses on either parents' or child players' views. Bridging these perspectives is critical for identifying the alignment or divergence between children's and parents' concerns, which provides a more comprehensive image of challenges and opportunities children face in these games. Through a mixed-method content analysis of 2000 reviews about Roblox (one of the most popular UGC platforms) from both parents and children, we identify six key risks children face and investigate how parents' and children's focuses on different risks may shift across age groups. We also propose design recommendations for advancing trust and safety initiatives on UGC platforms by considering children, parents, and developers as key stakeholders. We contribute to rethinking more nuanced safety models for protecting children that are developmentally responsive and context-sensitive, rather than relying on age-based thresholds (e.g., under-13 vs. 13+).
KW - Age
KW - Children's online safety
KW - User-generated content games
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105038769247
U2 - 10.1145/3772318.3790868
DO - 10.1145/3772318.3790868
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:105038769247
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
BT - CHI 2026 - Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
A2 - Oliver, Nuria
A2 - Shamma, David A.
A2 - Candello, Heloisa
A2 - Cesar, Pablo
A2 - Lopes, Pedro
A2 - Bozzon, Alessandro
A2 - Kosch, Thomas
A2 - Liao, Vera
A2 - Ma, Xiaojuan
A2 - Artizzu, Valentino
A2 - Draxler, Fiona
A2 - Lopez, Gustavo
A2 - Reinschluessel, Anke V.
A2 - Tong, Xin
A2 - Toups Dugas, Phoebe O.
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 13 April 2026 through 17 April 2026
ER -