Parents will most likely not be able to keep their kids off the online world so the next best thing would be to teach them internet safety. Of course, it’s not something that would really get their interest so you would have to sort of gamify the lessons. Meta is launching Pledge Planet on Messenger Kids, an interactive in-app activity that will teach young users how to navigate and make safe decisions when they’re online. The main lessons are the four tenets of the Messenger Kids Pledge and the first episode, Be Kind, is now available on the platform.
Each episode of Pledge Planets will have activities and games to help kids understand the concept of each of the tenets. The main characters of the activity will navigate various social interactions and the kids will need to help them make the right decisions to get “positive outcomes”. What Meta and the parents can hope is that the kids will be able to realize that their actions will have a big impact on people they interact with online and those around them.
The first episode, Be Kind, introduces kids to the owner of a sandwich shop and includes two games. Rough Reviews will show the owner getting reviews for their shop and the kids need to match the correct online response to the sometimes not so kind reviews. It also teaches kids some tools like blocking and reporting in case they encounter negative behavior that warrants them to take some action. It also helps them recognize the difference between kind and unkind behavior.
The other game is called Order Up which lets the kids build a sandwich by choosing the emojis that is the best response to the customers’ moods. It should be able to teach kids how to read the emotions of people online which can sometimes be different from dealing with people in person. Kids can start watching the Be Kind episode and playing the games by going to the Explore tab in the Messenger Kids app and choosing Pledge Planets.
The other upcoming episodes of Pledge Planets include Be Respectful, Be Safe, and Have Fun. Be Kind is now available in countries where Messenger Kids is available.
