Too Young for Social Networking

Social Networking Websites

Social networking was developed for the online community to interact with one another. It allows you to profile yourself publicly and also allows you to communicate, connect, and share with other members of the social network. Social networking has become one of the most popular things to do on the internet. Surveys conducted by research companies suggest that 1/3 of every internet users use the internet for social networking. The big three social networking websites are MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. With there combined income they could have more money than most countries. Thats how big social networking has developed in the past 10 years.

Social Networking Issues

There are plenty of issues on social networking, but the main issue that has recently been publicized is "How young is to young for social networking". Most social networking websites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter requires you to sign up for an account using your actual information. The information must be true or the social networking website has the rights to terminate your account. Well, another requirement is that you must be 18 years or older. Many children ignore that requirement and fake their age so that they can join these social networking websites. Parents believe that pre-teens should not be socializing online as they do not know how to distinguish if something is not right. Over the years there have been an increase on online predators associating themselves with underaged children. Here is where the concern rises, if a pre-teens profiles himself online in a social networking website he essentially exposes himself to predators who are also registered in the same network. This allows the predator to communicate with the pre-teen and where he or she typically becomes a victim of sexual abuse. Now that you know about the danger of children joining social networking websites it is up to you to educate them about this danger before its too late.