Should Facebooks age restriction be higher?

Facebook. It's by far the most popular social media site in the world. Almost everyone has heard of it. According to the statistic brain, 52% of students have reported that they have been bullied online, and 84% of that was on Facebook!

Does cyberbullying worry you? Have you let your child have a facebook account or other social media account? There are always a higher than expected (than I would expect anyway) number of reports of children being bullied online and then those children do something drastic because of this.

Should the use of social media be taught in schools?

I'm sure that Facebook is aware of the statistics and I am sure they have a "policy" for this but, is this enough? I have often seen videos of violence, bullying etc on facebook which I always report. If I can see that then so can children. I think there should be a few lessons in schools, probably primary school and early secondary school on the dangers that social media can bring. The rest is up to the parents of the children.

A new craze amongst kids

This week in the local news there was a report that an 11-year-old had gone missing for over 24 hours. Her family were worried sick as you might expect. After 24 hours she was found and it was the story after she was found that I was reading. Her grandmother had said, "Facebook should not be allowed for children under 16". Facebook already has an age restriction of 13 years old but in the case of the story above, this has been bypassed. My first thought is that it would be a good ideatidea to raise it but,

Would it stop cyberbullying? No, children will always find ways to interact online which will inevitably lead to cyberbullying somewhere.

How would facebook verify this? Anyone with half a brain can put a false date of birth into a computer to make sure that it looks like they're 16 or older. 

The grandmother had said that she had no indication that her granddaughter had taken part in a new craze but wanted to warn other parents of it also. This new craze involves kids egging on other kids to "go missing" for 48 hours. The child that goes missing then gains more points per mention on social media!

Seriously, kids these days are just plain idiotic sometimes. They clearly have no idea of the panic that this causes the family and clearly, have no idea of what could actually happen to them whilst they have gone "missing"...

So, should Facebooks age restriction be raised?

In my opinion, no. It is up to the parents of the children to correctly warn their children of the dangers of social media and what can happen whilst on there. As I said above, children will always find a way online to communicate with each other, at least on Facebook, as a parent you could easily get access to their account, especially if, as part of the conditions of using facebook or other social media you are the one that sets up the account. 

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments

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