How Young Is TOO Young...
to enter the very adult world of Social Media??
MySpace and FaceBook have an age minimum requirement to join their social sites, however, they cannot really verify, much less enforce, these requirements. Studies show (here I go again) that pre-teens pretend to be older when signing up. Another study (by the Pew Internet Research) have found that most of these underage children (9-12 year olds) have permission from their parents to setup these accounts. What kind of "social skills" are kids really getting from all this??
Personally, I believe that any one under the age of 18 should not be on social sites - but again, that's a personal choice and a rule in my own household to the dismay of my 16 year old son - we may bend that one next month when he turns 17. His friends however, have been on these sites for years. I just don't get it. I use about 6 social networks to promote my website and some "kid" will ask me to Add them, Friend them, Whatever them. Their photo is always a provocative one - half nekked (naked) lil' girls with too much make-up and shirtless boys with their underwear showing over their jeans. At first, I laugh - look at these kids trying to be grown...then I really look at the photos: They are CHILDREN, lots of them "trying" to be grown. I find it a little frightening.
In the past couple of years, some scientists have voiced concerns that children are spending too much on these sites and that such online socializing could have lasting negative effects as they mature.
"My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment.
I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier [online] screen dialogues." - Susan Greenfield, an Oxford University neurocientist and director of Britain's Royal Institution.
So, in this new day in age, children are no longer playing baseball on the weekends, nor having tea-parties with their bears anymore. Participation in Team Sports around 8 -13 years olds are on a decline. Socializing is becoming a solo act thanks to the Internet and kids today know how to navigate through social sites, but not neccessarily through life.
Children do not meet face to face anymore, they no longer know how to have a decent conversation, nor even write a proper letter because they are "texting" and "instant messaging" their way through their friendships. They should not have human interaction via a keyboard only...and they're getting younger all the time.
Alternately, a growing number of networking sites are geared specifically toward younger users. Sites such as Disney's Club Penguin - mainly a game site, but with limited social functions - WebKinz and Whyville feature more restricted and supervised networking. Children as young as 5 have accounts at KidSwirl, a kids' social-networking site patterned loosely on Facebook.
"The reality is that we're a technology-driven generation," said creator of KidSwirl Toby Clark, who launched the site in February and said it has about 10,000 users. "That's not going to change."
H. Luiz asks, "WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT ALL THIS?" Please share your views in the "comments" field.
Author: http://www.hluizpresents.com, Posted on Tue, Nov 03, 2009
