Cyber Awareness Game for Children

With the emergence of cyberspace in the past couple decades, we have found ourselves depending on the internet for almost everything. Whether it’s just browsing, streaming videos and movies, gaming, or even making purchases, the cyberspace is utilized pretty much everyday by the average person, including children.

Over the past few years, almost everything you can think of has been taken over by technology. With the recent pandemic, a lot of business locations had to close down. This included schools, which meant education was affected severely. Numerous schools and universities across the country were shut down, so how were students meant to continue their education? Distance learning, and even working from home became widely used across the nation by people of all ages during this time.

As children are starting to use technology at early stages in their life, it also makes them easy targets for malicious attacks and cybercrimes. They are still developing much of their understanding and knowledge of everyday life, so that makes them a vulnerable demographic. Young children are easily influenced by what they see and hear whether its something that was said by their parents, something off of a tv show they watch, or even a game that they play. They are not really cautious about the things that people who are older tend to be cautious about as they are only children. They do not have the same wariness that an adult would have, and their overly curious minds make them the easiest target for cyber threats. Just as a parent would tell their child, “Do Not Talk To Strangers”, it’s important to let them know early that they should also not open messages or links from strangers as well. That is why parents should always keep an eye on what their children are looking at on the internet, and implement parental controls on devices if they have not.

Children learn a lot these days through educational games. The invention of games for the sole purpose of education has benefitted children greatly. It is extremely difficult for children to focus well on something that they are not interested in. So keeping in mind how important it is to have cyber awareness, especially at such a young age, developing an informative game that will teach kids how to be as safe as they can be while using the internet. The ideal game will also have multiple levels for different age groups, so this game will be for kids and teenagers as well. The levels will start with easier, more understandable material for the younger aged kids, and the more in-depth material as the age increases. Some of the topics that will be included amongst the levels will start as simple as not to click on links from unknown sources, to how to tell what email is a phishing email and to not interact with them. Social media is also a big part of kids and teenagers lives, so having cyber awareness plays a big role in it as well. It is easy for children or even teenagers to unknowingly post private information without thinking much of it, so there will be a level(s) that will educate them on what is or is not safe to post.

Although this seems like a great idea all around, there are, however, quite a few barriers to overcome in order to see this project all the way through. First off, being able to find an efficient development studio to put this game together is most important, followed by the budget. It is imperative that there is a big enough budget to be able to afford to create this (most likely) very expensive game. It is in the best interest of the team to try and secure as many investors and donations as possible, as this is not a cheap feat. Being sure that the game gets the attention of the intended audience is a potential issue that has to be taken account for. Labeling it as an educational game, might turn the kids attention away from it which is something else to watch out for. It’s possible that if it is made fun enough, while still focusing on the cyber awareness aspect of it, it will be a hit.

There will have to be a demo or beta of the game to start off, hopefully, by having children play the demo it will be easy to gauge the interest of the public and see where they stand. Collecting feedback from that, as well as reviews about that game, will show the team what everyone thinks and how the game can be improved. Adding an optional survey at the end of each level, or on the menu of the game is also a way to gauge the reaction of the audience, how they feel about the game, and even tell the team whether or not the game actually worked as intended.