Fortnite - A Primary Teacher’s Perspective

Aside from a few website links on this subject, I had decided to veer away from any real comment on this topic. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a view or don’t care. I do. It’s just my general mantra is a ‘live and let live’ attitude and I try not to be contentious. 

As an educator, I do my utmost to engage, inspire, and challenge children to be the best they can be, to instil a love of learning, while encouraging them to be kind and thoughtful about others. I don’t like to preach and I know we all try our best, often in complicated circumstances, to raise our children well and don’t like to be told what to do.

However, recently, I have found myself increasingly ‘venting’ to my lovely wife in the evening about the negative impact Fornite was having on some of the children in my coding clubs. “You need to tell people!” my wife tells me and, as hard as it is for me to say, she is right! I do need to be open and honest about by views.

So … here goes. My, and <Think> Big’s addition to the debate surrounding Fortnite. 

I provide these views sincerely, without any intended judgement, and please be aware they only refer to Primary-age children playing the game. If you don’t agree, that is 100% fine and I’d like to encourage a healthy (and polite!) discussion of people’s views at the end of this post.

There are generally three key concerns cited about Fortnite:

1. Content.
As most people know (and all children proudly tell me!), Fortnite has a PEGI rating of 12. This covers “violence of graphic nature against fantasy characters and more non-realistic violence towards human-like characters”. It also covers “sexual innuendo and posturing”. 

This complaint about primary age children playing the game is, depressingly, probably my least concern. Yes, it trivialises guns, weapons, violence and death and I could understand, and fully support, parents banning the game on this alone. Also, particularly as a father of a daughter, I despise the sexualisation in the game. 

However, with children already bombarded with excessive and inappropriate imagery from all types of different media and at all times of the day, I sadly feel that this is almost a lost-cause already. I’m not proud of my submission on this topic. I try my best. I pick my fights. But I do, generally, allow my child to watch 12-rated films and I feel I need to be realistic about the world my daughter is growing up in.

2. e-Safety.
The chat facility on Fortnite is an integral element of the game. Some parents have told me they support Fortnite for the social aspects of the game. I can’t agree with this – there must be better and more constructive ways we can encourage collaboration.

As a Primary School teacher I try to instil in children an understanding of the need for e-safety – both in computing and also as part of the wider PSHE curriculum. I often despair at children’s disregard for their own privacy and safety by, say, inappropriate posts on You Tube and the statistics for paedophiles using social media and gaming sites to engage with young children is, to say the least, disturbing. 

The open chat feature of the game certainly conflicts with all of the important messaging we try to teach children and I believe, for many children of Primary age, they may not be sufficiently e-literate and e-Safety aware not to be negatively affected playing the platform.

Personally, this aspect, in isolation, probably wouldn’t stop me allowing my daughter to play Fortnite. Whilst hopefully not being too blasé about this, I do believe my daughter is mindful of these issues (I really never stop going on about it!) and with regard to this (hopefully well founded!) confidence, I do allow her to play games such as Roblox as long as she doesn’t engage in any chat.

I know many parents also probably have this confidence and trust in their children and I pray we are all right!

3. Impact.
So, I finally come to what for me is my main and most significant concern – the negative impact the game is having on some children (emphasis here on the word ‘some’!). It is for this reason why I don’t allow my 9-year old daughter playing (or watching YouTube videos of other children engrossed in it!). 

Gaming addiction, or ‘disorder’, was characterised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a mental health condition this year. 

“Well, my child certainly isn’t addicted!” I’m sure many parents would say at this point.

Addictions are generally regarded when they take a “precedence over other life interests” states WHO.

Is your child playing Fortnite in place of other things they used to love doing?

“Even if they are; TV is the same, is it really that bad?”

Since the start of this year, I have noticed increased chat about all things Fortnite in my clubs. Children who historically have been thoroughly engaged with learning new skills and tinkering with emerging technologies have started to be so consumed with the game that it is all they can discuss. 

I have also spoken with a number of teachers who have been alarmed at this same issue in classrooms. Dishearteningly, they have told me that in recent free writing exercises – where children could choose their own creative narrative – they can specifically pinpoint each child in the class that plays Fortnite just by the storyline they chose. Plots filled with death, fighting, weapons, and more death. The quality of the writing, they say, is also significantly diminished compared to the child’s historic content.

We probably shouldn’t be surprised at this. If anyone has read Irresistible by Adam Alter, or studied e-game design, they will know that these games are designed to be all-encompassing and addictive. The game features of Fortnite provide a textbook example. 

Another worrying impact I have noticed is the ‘kudos’ that children feel from being players and the power they feel they have over their parents. They are proud the game is a 12-certificate and explain to me in detail how they convinced or manipulated their parents so they could play. Moreover, and very concerning, I have seen, and had to intervene in, low-level bullying and teasing of children who aren’t allowed to play. 

It’s now deemed cool to play Fortnite in a way that was never the same with, say, Mindcraft. 

“Isn’t it just a fad? They’ll bore with it soon.”

Maybe. Hopefully. But when you consider that research shows that 40% of Fortnite users are over 25, and that EPIC, the creators, will continue to bring out new editions to keep players hooked and the money rolling in, I doubt that it will die out like fidget spinners or (please g*d) squishies! 

So, I have said my piece. 

What do you think?!

[Originally published 19th July 2018 by <Think> Big on Facebook]