Poptropica. Club Penguin. Webkinz. These were the online spaces that defined childhood in the early 21st century. These digital spaces were designed for younger audiences, giving kids and younger teens a safe way to build community and have fun online. And while nostalgia might be rose-tinted, the digital platforms available for kids today aren’t as mindfully created. The creation of safer, youth-centric digital spaces is vital for today’s youth. There simply are not enough online spaces for younger audiences to safely interact and build community, and the current options often put their safety at risk.
Youth-centric spaces used to be everywhere. Most kids grew up with Adobe Flash Player in the early 2000s and 2010s and the thousands of games it came with. Poptropica, Club Penguin and Coolmath Games were readily available to any kid with a computer and WiFi, and games like these were designed with kids and young teens in mind. The players were all of a similar age range and maturity level, and game features were designed with importance given to user safety.
However, when Adobe discontinued Flash Player in late 2020, many of these games disappeared off the internet or were repackaged into downscaled legacy versions, becoming internet relics. The vast majority of these games are no longer accessible with a few exceptions such as Coolmath Games, which had already switched over to HTML5 when Flash was discontinued.
The most readily available platforms now for kids to build community are games like ROBLOX and Fortnite. These sites and others like them are created without a specific age group in mind, leading to the games having a wide age range of users.
ROBLOX, the gaming platform played by a majority of Americans under sixteen, is notorious for its lack of age restrictions and protections. Much of ROBLOX’s content is user-created, and this system makes it especially difficult to vet content that children and younger audiences are exposed to. ROBLOX’s management has also made it clear that implementing digital safety for younger audiences is not a current priority, noting that such implementations pose an industry challenge and that the internet will continue to have bad actors.
While similar games like Fortnite are recommended for ages 13 and above and may be more regulated, their open chat features still pose a risk for younger players, as these users can be easily contacted through in-game text and voice chats.
Even beyond gaming platforms, the search to find safe and youth-centric digital spaces continues. The main platforms kids and younger teens are now turning to in order to find community are mainstream social media apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. Almost 40% of kids eight to 12 are on social media, even though the minimum age to join is generally listed as 13; nearly 95% of teens aged 13-17 also use social media.
While apps like Instagram have taken measures such as creating teen accounts, they do not override the negative effects of the platform as a whole. Increased tech dependency, dopamine addictions and ineffective content guardrails create a tech experience that is oftentimes detrimental to the mental health of younger users.
Of course, it is possible for a platform to be safe without it being explicitly targeted towards a younger audience. Games such as Animal Crossing are played by a wide range of ages, but are still considered an overall safe gaming experience for all. However, there are simply not enough of these spaces available, and some of these spaces are not financially accessible.
Kids and younger teens deserve safe spaces where they can make meaningful connections with their peers. While current social media and gaming platforms do give them that opportunity, many of these sites also expose younger audiences to unsafe content and allow them to have unfiltered contact with adults they may not know, putting youth in a vulnerable position. Kids should not have to feel as though social media is the only way to engage with their community, nor should they feel like their only accessible gaming platforms puts their safety at risk. Adobe Flash Player might be dead, but the games it created serve as models for the digital spaces we should be creating today.
Shanaaz Faisal is an Opinion Intern for the summer 2026 quarter. She can be reached at shanaazf@uci.edu.
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