Should Kids Under 13 Be Allowed to Use Facebook?

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It's well known that Facebook does not permit users under 13 years old -- and that many kids find a way to use the social networking site anyway. All that could change, though, now that Facebook is developing technology that would allow kids under 13 to use the site under parental supervision, The Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the WSJ, there are a few possibilities in the works. One would connect
children's accounts to their parents', allowing mom and dad to decide whom their kids can "friend" and what applications they can use.

It does seem incumbent upon Facebook to come up with something, since many kids lie about their ages to get accounts. Last year, Consumer Reports said 7.5 million children under the age of 13 were using the site, including more than five million under the age of 10. And last fall, a study sponsored by Microsoft Research found that 36 percent of parents were aware that their children joined Facebook before age 13, and many even helped their kids to do so.

But given that adults have privacy concerns about Facebook, is the site safe for kids? And could it make them vulnerable to predators and bullies?

Top Opinion

• Bob P. Clarkson 2012/06/05 20:04:22
  No

  

  +23

  Adults have no concept of security on the Internet and children of all ages almost universally trust that everyone is as "nice and good" as they are. My now 15 year old granddaughter got on Facebook at 13, and even though her Dad took her off Facebook, she got on under another name using a friend's computer.
  Grandpa has been playing with computers since we were using punch cards, and even though I no longer write programs, I stumble my way through the computer world.
  I established an account as a fifteen year old boy with pictures I borrowed from a neighbors son, then "stalked" her and convinced her to meet me at a mall - it was really safe that way. When she walked in to the food court, she was surprised to see me and acted like she wanted me to disappear before "Steve" got there.
  I showed her the file on her and "Steve" and she was P.O.'d I had spied on her.
  I showed her where her school was, where her best girlfriends lived, where she lived and gave her my "On-line Security" talk.
  She listened as a know-it-all 13 year old listens, which to say is, not at all, and continued to hammer me about "spying" on her. I logged on to Facebook with my laptop, and when I signed in to my Steve persona, she got very quiet. Then I retold her what I had done and showed her how "unsafe" th...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Adults have no concept of security on the Internet and children of all ages almost universally trust that everyone is as "nice and good" as they are. My now 15 year old granddaughter got on Facebook at 13, and even though her Dad took her off Facebook, she got on under another name using a friend's computer.
  Grandpa has been playing with computers since we were using punch cards, and even though I no longer write programs, I stumble my way through the computer world.
  I established an account as a fifteen year old boy with pictures I borrowed from a neighbors son, then "stalked" her and convinced her to meet me at a mall - it was really safe that way. When she walked in to the food court, she was surprised to see me and acted like she wanted me to disappear before "Steve" got there.
  I showed her the file on her and "Steve" and she was P.O.'d I had spied on her.
  I showed her where her school was, where her best girlfriends lived, where she lived and gave her my "On-line Security" talk.
  She listened as a know-it-all 13 year old listens, which to say is, not at all, and continued to hammer me about "spying" on her. I logged on to Facebook with my laptop, and when I signed in to my Steve persona, she got very quiet. Then I retold her what I had done and showed her how "unsafe" the Internet was, again.
  Since a number of her friends had "friended" me, and some friends of the real Steve, kind of computer specialists, I showed her how easier it was to track her, and them, using Facebook and Google Earth.
  She was still put out with grandpa when she left, but two days later she took down her Facebook account - and so did two of her friends. She now gives security lectures to her friends that want to know why she doesn't have a Facebook page.
  
  She now has unlimited minutes on her iPhone, and actually likes it better than Facebook. I'm sure she and all of her friends will have arthritic thumbs when they get older, and I'm sure they will figure out something else that is probably just as dangerous, but parents and grandparents can only deal with what we know.
  Oh, it took her only a week to forgive me, but when she told her dad why she took down her Facebook page, he was bent out of shape for about a month for sticking my nose in. It was "his job" to guide and guard her through to adulthood. When my quick statement about I did what he would have to have hired someone else to do and didn't charge him for my work finally sunk in.
  I was guilty that I usurped his parental job, but I've always been a Type A, so it never even dawned on me to consult him - I just did it to protect my granddaughter.
  I'm not sure I would do it much different, anyway.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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