Children and Youths in Risk of Grooming via Online Games
Child Fund Japan (Suginami-ku, Tokyo; Executive Director: Katsuhiko Takeda), a non-profit organization, conducted a survey on the grooming in online games and actual situation of children and youths.
■ Survey Summary ■
Period : November 28, 2024 – December 05, 2024
Subjects : Males and females aged 13-25 /whole country
Responses : Male 834 (51%), Female 782 (49%) Total 1,616
Minor: 624 males (60%), 425 females (40%) Total 1,049
Method : Online survey
Project Members : Joint research with Otemon Gakuin University
Summary of Results Analysis – Grooming;
- Among minors, 13% experienced grooming, showing that males (18%) are more likely to experience grooming than females (6%).
- 42% of minors have received a chat from a stranger when playing an online game.
Summary of Results Analysis – Game Play;
- 40% of minors play online games.
- Many minors play online games in the evening (7:00-10:00 p.m.) on both weekdays and holidays.
- Only 50% of minors have family rules for playing online games.
- More male minor (68%) than female minor (58%) have a specific online game friend. The reasons for getting along are most likely to be a match in groove and hobbies, which is assumed to be related to a match in internal factors.
- More minors take the initiative to make friends on online games, showing that males (31%) are more likely than females (19%).
Based on these results, the research team made the following recommendations;
- Creation of an environment in schools that facilitates consultation. (e.g., reinforcement of “education on information morales” from the child‘s perspective so that minors fully understand how perpetrators approach.)
- Creating a comfortable environment for talking at home. (e.g., parents understand as much as possible about popular game names and their communication functions.)
- Improve the display of play rules, restrictions on inappropriate words, and reporting functions at game production/operation companies. (e.g., obligatory pop-up of play rules when minors log in; detection and masking of sexual or grooming expressions; adding of free descriptions on reporting form besides preset pull-down menu)
Future Issues are also revealed;
- There were unexpectedly few responses to the detailed questions about grooming. Specific game names were not answered, in part because they might answer if it is a pull-down menu rather than a free description. There may be a variety of fears that the games they enjoy may be discredited or banned. It is necessary to consider conducting the survey with careful explanation and Q&A session in person.
- Since game fads and playing styles change very quickly, survey research should be conducted with increasing frequency to ascertain the actual situation.
- The gaming community is closed and the actual situation is difficult to understand. Communication methods are not only in game functions, but also through various SNS. More multifaceted research is expected.
The results of each question, analysis, recommendations, and the survey form are available here.