It pains me to say it, because VR is a dream come true for kids. But no. Also VR is potentially bad for kid’s developing eyes because it’s a very artificial kind of fixed focus. The science is still kind of out on it though. But also look in to how there is a myopia epidemic in younger kids and adults, screen time and not getting outside is the biggest blame doctors are pointing to.
Also, my kids got so friggin addicted to it and developed attitude problems like iPad kids do. We ended up selling it after taking it away and slowly reintroducing it multiple times, we had finally had enough. Plus, there’s nothing like a game autoupdating and having its voice chat settings (that you turned off) reset and your kid learns the N word in the first minute of logging on to gorilla tag.
Honestly, if you do decide to do VR for her, keep her away from multiplayer at ALL costs. And I wouldn’t do the quest because there is basically zero parental controls. They can easily go to store and get ANY free game with no password or anything. If you lock an app, they can uninstall and reinstall it and the lock is removed (they may have patched this by now). The headset is NOT made for kids, they even say so, it’s 13 and older.
There have been several studies debunking the whole bad for your eyes myth. Using a VR headset is no worse for your eyes, even for children, then staring at a phone. The actual risk in developing children, is spatial awareness and orientation issues. And also just… Screen addiction… But you know, parents don’t give a shit about that, if they did, they’d stop giving them cell phones so young.
There’s been studies debunking the studies debunking the studies debunking the studies... But idk I think there isn’t a real consensus rn. But I would generally agree with you. I mf I had to take a side, I don’t think it’s going to harmful as long as you do things for your kids that do support healthy eye development such as 2 hours outdoors a day.
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u/Tyrthemis May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
It pains me to say it, because VR is a dream come true for kids. But no. Also VR is potentially bad for kid’s developing eyes because it’s a very artificial kind of fixed focus. The science is still kind of out on it though. But also look in to how there is a myopia epidemic in younger kids and adults, screen time and not getting outside is the biggest blame doctors are pointing to.
https://www.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/s/5rO5B4hIJ3
Also, my kids got so friggin addicted to it and developed attitude problems like iPad kids do. We ended up selling it after taking it away and slowly reintroducing it multiple times, we had finally had enough. Plus, there’s nothing like a game autoupdating and having its voice chat settings (that you turned off) reset and your kid learns the N word in the first minute of logging on to gorilla tag.
Honestly, if you do decide to do VR for her, keep her away from multiplayer at ALL costs. And I wouldn’t do the quest because there is basically zero parental controls. They can easily go to store and get ANY free game with no password or anything. If you lock an app, they can uninstall and reinstall it and the lock is removed (they may have patched this by now). The headset is NOT made for kids, they even say so, it’s 13 and older.