p2pnet - rss feed: Brainwashing kids in virtual worlds
p2pnet news | Advertising:- Here’s scary.
“Knowledge Adventure, the maker of kids’ educational game software JumpStart, plans Monday to begin selling virtual world software for 3- to 5-year-olds,” says CNET News.
“The software, from Knowledge Adventure and called JumpStart Advanced Preschool World, “will encourage kids to learn their ABCs by playing games in a 3D version of the beach or a jungle, with heavy use of voice and images instead of text,” says the story.
“And it will give young ones their first taste of creating and decorating an avatar.”
Just what every three-year-old needs to know.
JumpStart will go for $30 at stores including Target, Best Buy, Office Depot, and Amazon.com, says the story.
But Knowledge Adventure will be available for rental online for between $8 and $12, and, parents can check their kids’ progress on educational games from the Web,” it says, “and kids will be able to share artwork with peers, personalize their environments, and play new games.”
So what’s scary?
Knowledge Adventure is hard-core. It’s owned by Vivendi Universal, one of the Hollywood studios which, with the other majors studios, funds the MPAA, a front organisation that’s always looking for cool new tricks to get into kids’ minds so it can turn them into good little zombie consumers.
And the younger the better.
Not only but also “We are very skilled at building software products for kids, with immersive 3D play, gaming, and adventure-based learning,” CNET has CEO David Lord openly saying, going on to stress, “it’s an immersive environment”.
‘Immersive’ is a concept much favoured by people who make stuff for kids.
Webkinz, made by Canada’s Ganz, “are probably the most pervasive of the various child magnets, but there are plenty of other sites blatantly or subtly selling to kids, including tots,” said p2pnet in 2007, going on to quote another CNET News story discussing a conference on virtual worlds when, “executives from some of the industry’s biggest sites touted growing audiences of kids, who spend hours a month playing games and socializing,”.
The story went on >>>
Some of those communities boasted of successful experiments with marketing. For example, preteens are driving virtual Toyota Scions on sites such as Whyville.net and Gaia Online, and they’re wearing the latest digital fashions from DKNY at Stardoll.com. Nickelodeon also talked about coming plans to run “immersive” ads in its 3D environment for kids ages 7 to 14.”
Are kids ready for ads in virtual worlds? - asks the story.
You bet they are.
“Executives at these companies, and their investors, agree that virtual worlds are engaging enough to children to provide an unprecedented opportunity for marketing,” it says, quoting Bob Bowers, CEO of Numedeon.
“This is a very powerful medium for marketing because it involves this huge engagement. It’s more powerful than a sugar cereal commercial.”
Stay tuned.
.
.Stumble It!
CNET News - Virtual worlds for pre-schoolers? They’re here, March 11, 2007
p2pnet - Child addicts in virtual worlds, October 23, 2007
CNET News - Are kids ready for ads in virtual worlds?, October 16, 2007.
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe
to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.phpNet access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Isn’t Vivendi connected to Everquest? Or is it WoW? Either way, that’ll tell you where this earl avatar creation stuff is heading.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Fun stuff…I don’t know exactly when it happened, but somehow they’ve got people actually paying for massive ongoing adverts… If they’re dumb enough to pay a company to subscribe to an advertising feed wellll I almost fear that they deserve what they get.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Education IS brainwashing.
A child’s mind is like a back yard. If you don’t water the lawn, and pull the weeds, it will not look like a nice garden, it will look like crap. I’m sure you’ve seen yards neglected by people.
I’m sure you’ve seen children neglected by people too.
The question is: What type of morality are your kids being brainwashed to believe?
And is it a morality that shares your beliefs? Public schools can often take liberties of teaching morality and beliefs contrary to what you would have your children learn. Is this software any different?
The issue I see here is the classic “let your kid loose on some technology that keeps them ‘out of your hair’” syndrome. Virtual reality is no substitute for a close relationship, supervision, and love of a parent. Used in moderation, and supervised, it could be a good tool though.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
you can hug a virtual doll; It will not hug back
You can think an original thought at random
a computer can not and never will.
You can imagine beyond the limits of creation,
Virtuality is different to imagination It cab only use the imaginations of its programmers.
May 14th, 2008 at 8:46 am
but who is to say that a “virtual world” is not real? are there not bits of electricity representing that world present inside that computer?
are not our own perceptions of what is real represented inside our brain by pulse of the same electricity?
real is undefinable, for the same reason that you cannot state an opinion as fact.
It depends on who and what you are.
anything that is “real” to you is only as real as your perception of it.