Is Among Us Safe For Your Children To Play? 

Is Among Us Safe For Your Children To Play?

4 Tips To Keep Your Kids Safe

Among Us is the latest video game sensation — do you know if it’s safe for your children to be playing? Nexus IT Consultants’ CEO Earl Foote recently appeared on KSL Radio’s Dave & Dujanovic to discuss simple ways to reduce the risk of online gaming for young children.

Are your kids playing Among Us?

Even if they aren’t, they probably have a friend who is. This online game has taken the world by storm, with 42 million downloads in the first half of September alone.

If it’s just a matter of time before your kids start playing the game, take this opportunity to learn more about it and how to reduce the potential risks it poses to your children.

For an overview of the game and discussion of safety tips, check out this recent episode of Dave & Dujanovic on KSL Radio, featuring Nexus IT Consultants’ CEO Earl Foote

What Is Among Us?

Among Us is an online multiplayer game, which tasks players with maintaining a spaceship while trying to determine which one of their crewmates is a bloodthirsty monster. Players must investigate, interrogate and bluff each other to identify the monster and eject it into outer space, or else the monster wins.

It’s a relatively simple concept, tied together in an engaging game that’s free-to-play. For all these reasons, it has become immensely popular over the past two months.

As with any pop culture sensation, it’s important for parents to understand what it’s about, and whether it’s appropriate or safe for children.

What Risks Could Among Us Pose To Your Children?

Despite being a game about a monster taking out spaceship crew members one by one, Among Us features very little gore, violence or blood, relying on a cartoonish animated style.

The primary concern about safety with Among Us is due to the fact that it’s an online game, which leads to potential risks:

• You Don’t Know Who Your Children Are Playing With: Unless it’s set up with specific friends in mind, Among Us will randomly connects players from all over the world to play together. The game does not match for age, or any other characteristics specific to the player. That means your ten-year-old child could be playing with a group of middle-aged men; it’s just the way online games like this work.
• Indie Games Lack Advanced Safety Features: While some studio-produced games have the resources to devote to advanced safety features that help to protect young children, independently produced games like Among Us are more simple in their design. While the online nature of Among Us’ gameplay could make you nervous about letting your children play it, that’s not to say there aren’t ways to minimize the associated risks…

What Can You Do To Keep Your Children Safe?

• Educate Your Children About The Risks: Make sure your children understand how online games work, and that they’ll likely be playing with strangers who are not to be trusted. Even outside of games like this, children should understand to never give out personal information to strangers online.
• Check-In With Your Children After Gameplay: Make sure to ask your children about the game, and if they had any odd or bad experiences while playing it.
• Configure Profanity Censors: In the settings, you can enable a “Censor Chat” feature, which blanks our profanity both in the written chat and in the voice chat.
• Supervise Your Children While Playing: The easiest way to keep your kids safe is to have them play the game in your presence. While you won’t have to be sitting and watching over their shoulder, having them play in the same room or an adjacent room will allow you to monitor for any inappropriate behavior by other players.

As always, try to keep the lines of communication open with your children regarding the online games they play, and their Internet habits. The better you understand the games they play, and the better they understand the potential risks, the safer their experience will be.