A question that looms over ever parent about what age should they allow their child into the scary World Wide Web. Cyber bullying stories are something we see far too often, so can you blame a parent for wanting to keep their child as far away as possible from it.
Facebook’s terms of use states that children no younger than 13 should join the environment of Facebook, however children will always find a way round it, in this case it is simple to just lie about your age, therefore making it very difficult for Facebook to know whether someone is under age, relying on reports of violators. Despite this reports are circulating that the social media giant is considering easing its age restrictions. In a Consumer Reports survey from 2011, it was estimated that about 7.5 million children younger than 13 already belonged to Facebook.
However this raised the question to me do children any younger than 13 actually need to be on Facebook?
Having an age limit on Facebook and other social networking sites is not only difficult, but surely every child is different. Is this where the parents need to step in and have control over what their child is doing, asking themselves the question, is my child ready to socialise in this big wide world with children much older than them or even adults?
Peer pressure at school will forever be there weather it’s the latest pair of trainers, toy or yoyo, if you don’t have it in the school playground, you just don’t fit in. So as a parent what do you do? Do you give in because everyone else is doing it? Even though you know that doesn’t mean it is a good idea? Or do you keep your child off the sites, resulting to them being secretive and joining Facebook behind your back anyway?
Does the problem with cyber bullying stem from the fact that the children are too young or no matter what ages they are, is it because they aren’t educated enough? Children make the mistake of interacting with inappropriate people online. They fill out the boxes on their profile not knowing really how much information they are actually giving away making children extremely vulnerable on Social networking sites.
Something that has been in the media recently is the tragic case of Canadian school girl Amanda Todd, after being the victim of cyber bullying from many years the only way she felt she could escape from it was by tragically taking her own life.
Cases like this show the severity of the effects of cyber bullying; Amanda wasn’t the first victim of cyber bullying which resulted to taking her own like and most probably won’t be the last. So how can this be stopped, unfortunately we are in a world where we can’t escape social networking. So what do you think the best way to protect your child form cyber bullies is?
Do they need more education or tighter age restrictions?
Let’s start the debate
Gabriella