Clique on to Penguin
How a virtual world is changing social dynamics in fifth-grade classrooms across the country
There were early signs, like when her son, Perry, who is 7, started talking seriously about buying a piano. Or when his friends started organizing sled races, even though temperatures in their northern California neighborhood were climbing into the 60s. But GraceAnn Stewart did not use the word obsession until the day a few weeks ago when Perry asked her to make his school day longer.
The reason was Club Penguin, a website where kids live second lives masquerading as chubby aquatic birds. Perry's parents limit the time he spends playing this Internet game at home, but in daycare he can get three uninterrupted hours of sledding down slopes, ordering virtual lattés, and maybe even meeting a tiny penguin "gf" (girlfriend). The Internet club, launched in October 2005, has captivated elementary school children across North America, with 4 million visitors in January, up from 2.6 million in September. Club Penguin—and a growing number of similar sites—provide the 8-to-14-year-old set with a virtual meeting place all their own, a MySpace for kids. But Penguin has unsettled parents. "There is no handbook on this," says Stewart. "Should we be allowing kids to do this? Is it really safe?"
That depends. Most parental nightmares involve foul-minded adults posing as penguins. Those fears are very likely overblown: Sophisticated safety features filter anything that looks like an E-mail address, a phone number, or profanity out of the children's chats. In fact, a Canada-based consulting firm that trains police about child safety on the Web uses Club Penguin as a positive model and the Better Business Bureau awarded the site a kids' privacy seal of approval. What's less clear is how these new online 'tween lands change the way kids talk, play, and grow.
Nancy Willard, an educator who wrote the book Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens, limits the time her son and daughter spend on Club Penguin. "These websites are specifically designed to work against the balance of life," she says. "You could get sucked in for hours."
Dennis, an 11-year-old from Ontario, knows firsthand how easy it is to fall for Club Penguin. Like most kids, he started out playing its arcade-style computer games that zoom penguins down ski slopes or behind jetskis. By playing these games, Dennis won points or coins that he could use to buy his bird clothing, pets, or furniture for his igloo.
That purchasing power kept him playing: The more stuff a penguin gets, the more popular he can become with the other players. Vintage items no longer in the game's online catalogs are especially precious. A player whose penguin is dressed in a classic outfit can be barraged with buddy requests and ingratiating virtual postcards. It's this social element—the complex fantasy universe kids have built on top of the developers' basic platform—that's gotten Dennis and others like him hooked.
Hearty chat. Dennis had his first date, his first breakup, and his first making-up in Club Penguin's virtual arctic world. "We just met each other and then we started giving hearts," Dennis says. "And then flowers." Penguins in the game communicate through words and symbols that rise above their heads in cartoon bubbles. Parents can limit their kids' chat repertoire to stock phrases and symbols or let their kids type actual words. "Boy or girl?" is one of the more popular choices. Hearts, which signify romantic attraction, are a close second.
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