Invasion of the Facebook Babies
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010I am shocked by number of Facebook babies. I call them babies because while many 8-12 year olds are more tech savvy than their parents, they still lack the judgment and maturity to protect their privacy. A recent study that found 25% of children age 8-12 that use the internet have a profile on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo even though the legal minimum age for most social networks is 13.
The majority of parents in the survey knew that their kids had a FB account but 17% did not. What was astounding to me was the amount of personal information that I could find out about my own 8 & 11 year old children’s peers that were facebook babies while not being “friends” with them. 90% of the kids that I searched had many photo albums, videos and interactions public, viewable to the entire internet. One 12 year old did a strip tease (fully clothed) kissing the camera while the other lamented being alone in her house while her family was bowling.
Why are so many children using social media?
