Block By Block: Kids in Adopt Me and Bloxburg

Bloxburg is a game within the Roblox platform where people can build their dream homes, work different jobs, and live their best virtual life! Whether you’re in the mood to design a cozy cottage or a massive mansion, Bloxburg is the perfect creative space to make it happen. Plus, you can hang with friends, earn in-game money, and explore the town. All in all, the game is a life-simulator. Bloxburg offers a world of possibilities and lessons. As we zero in on the details, we’ll also uncover the potential downsides, like screen time and in-app purchases.

Bloxburg does have benefits for children who play. Since the game is centered around managing money and is based on our economic system, it teaches players about proper spending habits and reminds them that they have to put in hard work/effort to receive profit (just like in real life). The game also invites its gamers to design and build their own homes, restaurants, or whatever their heart desires (using the money that they earn). There is a “co-owner” feature, which builders can use to invite their friends to work on a build with them, influencing teamwork and cooperation skills (vital in a child’s development). Essentially, Bloxburg teaches your kids to be responsible spenders (as well as workers), fosters creativity and design, and lastly encourages collaboration and partnerships.

On the negative side of Bloxburg, the game is almost too well designed with never-ending building possibilities and an almost “too real” environment. Colored with bright attractive colors, characters with interchangeable avatars, as well as real-world activities (gym, grocery store, shopping, beach, ect.), many children become addicted to their screens. 

Heightened screen time is proven to be linked to adolescent obesity. Screen time has many other negative effects (especially on children). More hours spent on a tablet not only means higher screen time, but it also could mean less time outside or interacting with the ‘real world.’ Kids who are now spending hours per day online could be out and about with their friends. Obviously, screen addiction has many contributing factors, regardless it is undeniable that Bbloxburg could lead your child to be chronically online (or ‘brain rot’ as Gen-Z has been referring to it). 

Adopt Me, is one of Robolx’s most popular games, with over 35 billion visits. The objective of Adopt Me is to earn money to buy increasingly rare animals that they hatch. But if so many children are playing Adopt Me, what are the implications, both positive and negative?

For starters, Adopt Me teaches kids how to care for an animal. To “level up” their given animal, they must feed, bathe, teach it, etc. It teaches how to reach monetary goals by saving/earning their money, while at the same time teaching them how to protect their assets.

This brings us to an extremely important issue with Adopt Me”: scamming is especially prevalent within the game. Measures have been taken within the game to improve issues regarding scamming, but scammers seem to be increasingly clever with their ways of scamming people. The most expensive item on Adopt Me is approximately 18,000 robux- which is equivalent to 225 USD! To succeed in the game, you really do have to spend copious amounts of real-life money, and with the amount of scammers out there, this money is susceptible to being stolen.

The game also incentivizes users by adding increasingly better rewards each day that they log on, as well as including events with in-game countdowns. This fosters a “grinding mentality” by encouraging their younger audience to spend hours a day on Roblox, with a survey saying that the average user spends around two hours on Adopt Me!

While Adopt Me has some positive aspects, the negative effects are overwhelming. According to Statista, around 25% of the users on Roblox are under the age of nine, and with the academic and social decline of Generation Alpha and the increase in screen time, you could link the academic decline to the screen use of Gen-Alpha, which Roblox could be contributing to.