“Hi cuz wot u up to #crazy”. I had to read it three times,
check the user who had sent me such a message, check their followers and
cross-reference completely until I was certain that this day had arrived. I had
just been tweeted by my 10 year old cousin. Obviously, I couldn’t believe it
and was instantly outraged. Yet but it raised numerous questions about the
generation that was to follow me: are they really ready to be released upon the
world of social media at such a young age? Is this what advancements in
technology has led us to?
Social media websites have of course imposed their own
boundaries: you must be 13 to set up a Facebook page, and twitter offers the
option of age-screening for brands, where you must insert your age before being
allowed to follow certain pages. However, the ‘age restrictions’ found on
Facebook and numerous other mediums such as tumblr often only consists of
filling in your date of birth: I’m almost certain that most twelve year olds
are capable and more than willing to merely change their year of birth by a
year in order to obtain access.
But what effect can these social media websites have upon
young children? Well, take twitter for example, you are never more than a few
clicks away from naked pictures, abusive comments and inappropriate behaviour
galore. Facebook also has seen a recent inundation of videos depicting
despicable acts, and this is without even beginning to discuss the implications
of followers/friends who are not who they say they are and the ever-present
risk of interaction with pedophiles.
Personally, I feel that 13 is a reasonable age to impose
upon such websites. By the time British children reach 13, they will have
completed their first year of secondary school and will have begun to form some
sort of understanding of the world. It’s important that children are given the
freedom to explore the internet nowadays, and we will always hear that you must
‘learn from your own mistakes’ and ‘you can’t keep them wrapped up in cotton
wool’. However, whether these social websites will ever be able to, or indeed
want to pay for the software, to prevent those under the age of 13 from using
such websites is a different case altogether.
I agree with your argument; there is so much available and accessible on the internet that age restrictions need to be more enforced. However I am unsure as to how to go about doing that. As you pointed out,it is very hard to reinforce age restrictions and I believe more work needs to be done in this area. Even I remember being young and lying about my age on websites!
ReplyDeleteAs to the title of your blog, it probably is too much to young but when the resources are readily available to anyone with internet access, it becomes hard to create a boundary between social media and those too young realistically to be using it. Taking a positive slant on the freely available websites, at least with sites such as Facebook news feeds are constantly updated with links to online news and other such educational resources as well as the not so educational links....silver lining!