Despite Their Reputation Among Youth ages 6 14

This dissertation endeavors to deeply perceive the features of Minecraft servers explicitly created for youth via three research utilizing combined strategies analysis. Human-Pc Interaction (HCI) analysis exhibits that sandbox-style virtual world games like Minecraft operate as interest-pushed spaces the place youth can discover their artistic interests, construct technical expertise, and kind social connections with friends and close to-friends. Regardless of their popularity amongst youth (ages 6 - 14), we all know little concerning the social and technological options of "in-the-wild" Minecraft servers that current themselves as "kid-friendly" or "household-friendly." The goals of this work are three-fold:1. To research the rhetoric of child-/household-friendliness and the socio-technical mechanisms of such servers (Study I: 60 servers), 2. To understand the lived experiences of server workers who reasonable on such servers (Research II: 8 youth and 22 moderators), and 3. To discover a design paradigm for technological mechanisms that leverage the strengths of a child-/family-friendly server group whereas also supporting moderators' practices (Examine III) I draw from interdisciplinary theories and structure this dissertation round two major arguments about child-/household-pleasant Minecraft server ecosystems. First, I argue that they're instantiations of play-based mostly affinity networks created by adults that promote opportunities for youth to explore their interests and social connections. Second, I argue that the social and technological mechanisms reflected in the server guidelines and moderators' practices are characteristic of servers that self-describe as kid-/family-friendly. Study I contributes a taxonomy for understanding server rules and an empirical characterization of three server genres - child-/family-friendly (n1 = 19); common-household-friendly (n2 = 20); and common (n3 = 20) in Minecraft. Minecraft servers Research II reveals moderators' motivations and socio-technical practices in child-/family-friendly servers. The findings show that adult moderators encourage youth-led creative roleplays, help the interests of young gamers (e.g., Hogwarts digital world, digital Satisfaction Day celebrations, and many others.), and supply mentorship to youth moderators on their servers. Research III theorizes the potential for automated prosocial instruments in play-based mostly spaces via a Discord Bot known as "UCIProsocialBot" inside OhanaCraft, one among the kid-/family-friendly server communities. Together, these findings present a set of social and technological features that will substantiate a model for designing kid-/household-pleasant online playgrounds. This work theorizes that kid-/household-pleasant servers can actualize positive youth development when their self-narratives, social practices, and technological mechanisms are aligned with adolescent developmental needs.