Children's Awareness of Digital Wellness: A Serious Games Approach.

Children today are more exposed to cyberspace and cyber threats than any of the previous generations. Due to the ever-evolving nature of digital technologies, devices like cell phones and tablets are more accessible to both young and old. Although technological advancements create many opportunities to its users, it also exposes them to many different threats. Young users are especially vulnerable, as they are rarely educated about these threats and how to protect themselves against them. One possible solution to this problem is to employ serious games as an educational tool to introduce concepts relating to cybersecurity and overall digital wellness on a level that is appropriate to a younger audience. This paper, therefore, presents the development of a mobile serious game to promote the digital wellness and foster cybersecurity awareness of pre-school children by incorporating existing literature in a new format. In order to assess its appropriateness as an educational tool, the resulting serious game was subjected to expert review with a focus on its value of conveying security and wellness concepts at the proper level, thereby promoting children’s safety in the digital world.