SINGAPORE – About one in five gamers between 13 and 18 years old feels he or she has been bullied in video games by other players, according to the first youth online gaming survey by the authorities.

Almost half of the 17 per cent who felt bullied did not tell their parents they had faced in-game bullying, with the majority of parents unclear about who their children gamed with.

For up to 14 per cent of gamers between 10 and 18 years old, online gaming blurred with reality as they engaged strangers they met online outside the games or chatted with them about personal information.

The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) on Feb 13 announced these findings from the inaugural online gaming survey. It urged parents to pay more attention to their children’s online activities. The ministry will gradually roll out tools and courses to help parents.

The door-to-door survey was conducted between 2022 and 2023 with 810 pairs of Singaporean youth between 10 and 18 who played online games at least once a month, and their parents, said MCI. Not all questions were posed to younger players between 10 and 12 years old.

The survey found that nearly half of all youth respondents gamed daily, usually for two hours or more in each session.

More than a third of players between the ages of 13 and 18 have come across vulgarities online or violent content in games, especially in first-person shooter games.

Close to one in five players in this age group experienced in-game bullying. Examples of such bullying were not given.

Roughly a third of the gamers between 10 and 18 years old would play with strangers online. This is a typical feature in massive online multiplayer games that allow players to converse as they play together.

Some players took these interactions beyond gaming, as 14 per cent of the respondents said they met the strangers personally, shared personal information with them or spoke with them on non-gaming topics. “Such behaviour presents a risk of potential exposure to adult predators and online scams,” MCI said. “Parents generally had low awareness of their child’s gaming activities.”

Only half of the parents were able to give an accurate estimate of the time their children spent online. A quarter of them were unaware of who their children gamed with.

Parents worried about their children’s gaming habits were more likely to set time limits and take other parental controls.

But a quarter of youth with time limits would lie to their parents about the amount of time they spent gaming, suggesting that restrictions alone are insufficient to manage their gaming activities, said MCI.

Communications and Information Minister Josephine Teo said on Feb 13 at a forum with parents and industry players on online safety that the authorities will gradually roll out a series of bite-size guides to help parents manage their children’s screen use and cultivate healthy online habits. These include guides on a child’s first smartphone and social media account.

Online games have come under scrutiny in the light of criminal gangs and extremists turning to such games to groom youngsters.

For instance, the Internal Security Department said in February 2023 that a pair of teens were radicalised through in-game communication features in online games like Roblox, a sign that bad actors were using games aimed at youth to widen their reach.

Gaming platforms like Microsoft have introduced gaming safety controls for parents to censor foul language and approve who their children speak to online in its library Xbox games.

While the MCI survey focused on the potential risks of online games, it noted that gaming can still be positive. “Other studies showed that there were benefits of gaming, such as enhancing perceptual and motor skills, promoting teamwork and prosocial behaviour, and providing platforms to express creativity and imagination,” it said.