Who Needs Real Toys? The Websites That Are Getting Girls As Young As Six Hooked on Social Networking

By Julia Stewart

They come home from school, ignore their toyboxes and log on. Mouses in hand, they enter a virtual world and play with their dolls online. The real thing, it appears, is no longer cool.

There is a plethora of internet sites now catering for young girls.

Stardoll.com, originally named Paperdollheaven.com by its Scandinavian-born designer, is now the world’s largest such site. It attracts almost six million girls a month, from all over the world; one million of them are British.

On this site, visitors can dress and play with one of 400 celebrity dolls – and it’s all free. For a fee, they can make up their own doll, one that represents themselves.

"We say that Stardoll is about fun, fashion and friends," says Stardoll’s chief executive Mattias Miksche. "We have competitions where users vote for each other on who’ll be the cover girl of our virtual fashion magazine. It’s the doll who appears, never the real person. If you are cover doll, you become immensely popular – you get lots of friends and people write things in your guest book."

Part of the site’s popularity, he says, is down to the fact that girls find the social aspect of connecting to each other online "very thrilling". Facebook may be populated largely by late teens and twentysomethings, while My-Space is dominated by their younger siblings, but if you thought that online social networking was not of interest to primary-school children – well, you’d be wrong.

Helen Daly’s daughters Niamh, eight, and Aoife, 10, play with dolls of Amy Winehouse and the American actress and pop starlet Ashley Tisdale on the site, as well as with versions of themselves.

"They race home from school every day to log on," says Daly, 38, a counsellor living in London. "The fact that they are communicating with other people is all part of the fun, really. But a lot of what you can do, you have to pay for."

And don’t think that these girls don’t know their way round an online billing system. "They know exactly how to pay," Daly says. "They say, ‘Oh, you can use PayPal or the mobile.’ But we haven’t given them that level of membership. They’re aiming to get StarDollars to buy accessories and clothes. If you’re a paying member, you become a SuperStar and you get exclusive rights to dolls that haven’t been released yet. It is a real money racket."

A harsh judgement? Perhaps not – the site, after all, accepts Visa, MasterCard, Amex and PayPal, or payment by text message.

Is this simply harmless fun, or yet another insidious computer- based distraction that stops children playing outside? Should they be playing with real dolls, and real friends, in the real world – or is this a way to equip young girls with the technical and networking skills that, in a decade’s time, may help them to get their first job?

While Daly believes that the site does teach IT skills, she is concerned about the message it sends about their bodies. "It teaches little girls about things like: do you want a doll with bigger boobs? Do you want a really skinny doll? Or a dark-skinned doll or a light-skinned doll? All the kind of values about beauty are there.

"And the dolls never get fat, either. Obviously, it’s really quite sexist. It’s got a bit of a body-fascism side to it. I’d much prefer it if they were playing with something other than dolls online. It’s making girls obsessed about looks. I’m fine with kids growing up with technology; I think it’s a privilege. But I would far rather they were out in the park."

The internet has also encroached on another childhood rite – keeping pets.

Children who want to get on to Webkinz – a website where you care for a virtual pet – first have to buy a small, soft toy animal, and a code on the box then allows them to play with an online version of the toy. A website spokeswoman, Susan McVeigh, says she has heard anecdotally that some children don’t bother playing with the real toy. Online, children have to decide whether their pet is a boy or a girl, name it, give it a room, furnish it, and be responsible for its "health, happiness and feeding".

There are pre-written phrases that can be sent to other Webkinz members. "It’s probably the first toy that has let kids cross between traditional popular toys into the virtual world. They can interact with the real pet, and then they have the virtual version online. It helps kids to learn responsibility. There are ‘meters’ in your pet’s room that indicate the health, happiness and hunger levels of your pet," McVeigh says.

But again, wouldn’t children gain more by playing outside? "This kind of website isn’t meant to replace that. It comes back to parental choice; this is just another option for what children can be doing," McVeigh says.

Also popular in the UK is WeeWorld, a site populated by WeeMees, or online cartoon versions of its users. Britain’s population of WeeMees numbers almost six million. The site makes its money from advertising and merchandise. "It’s perfect for people who want to do social networking in a way that’s fun and entertaining," says Celia Francis, chief executive of WeeWorld.

"Because it’s a cartoon version, you’re not as exposed. That makes the slightly younger female demographic more comfortable about talking to friends without being all ‘out there’, like in other social networking sites."

Girl zone: sites that are child’s play

* Barbiegirls.com

This site allows users to create their own Barbie Girl, through which they interact with others in pink, girly environments. By designing characters and rooms, and participating in activities like mixing music videos, users earn Barbie Bucks to buy things in the virtual shopping mall. No real money changes hands.

Members can control who they allow to enter their doll’s room, using three different settings – "locked", "best friends only" and "open". Blocking facilities let users control who can contact them. Barbie Girls also operates a messaging system that allows only approved words to be sent.

* Cartoondollemporium.com

Aimed at girls of six to 16, this site features hundreds of hand- drawn dolls for users to dress, including dolls based on iconic figures from history, politics and celebrity.

Through their dolls, users get jobs, build reputations, make friends, buy and sell virtual products and play games with one another. To use the full range of dolls and features, there is a monthly fee of $8 (Pounds 4).

The site also has a section dedicated to "cuteness", offering images, quotes and videos of friendship, animals and babies. Cartoon Doll Emporium, which is monitored constantly, also features automated scripting.

* Stardoll.com

Created by a paper-doll enthusiast and her son, Stardoll allows you to design your own "MeDoll" using eye and hair colour, hairstyle, skin tone and mouth shape templates – or you can choose a celebrity doll from a range of actors, models and athletes.

You can then dress them in a range of fashions using the online shop, paying for them with Stardollars, a currency members can earn (by playing games) or buy (via SMS, credit card and PayPal). There are MeDoll photo albums, diary facilities, messaging and friend lists. An automatic Bad Word Filter replaces certain words with asterisks.

* Webkinz.com

Webkinz are a line of soft toys sold in America, each having its own special code that allows their owners to adopt a virtual version of their toy. The craze is so popular that codes are being sold on eBay. Each code allows the owner access to the Webkinz website for one year. Like Tamagotchi, Webkinz have health and happiness levels, and users are encouraged to take care of them.

The site offers three degrees of chatroom filtering, the safest of which is KinzChat PLUS, which only allows users to send words approved by the site’s built-in dictionary.

Additional reporting by Abigail Outhwaite

(c) 2007 Belfast Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.