Thursday, March 15, 2012

OPINION: How young is too young for social networking?

By Maria Medina
Staff Writer

Multiple news stories have been released about teenage girls, some even preteen, meeting older men online with the help of social networking sites such as Facebook. With the minimum age of 13 to have a Facebook account, many speculate if the Internet is a safe place for their barely teenage citizens.

Being an older sibling to two younger sisters, I feel there is further action needed to be taken with social networking websites that allow such a low age minimum. They need some sort of age verification, since children nowadays use false dates to create profiles.

A survey on Sodahead.com stated that only 20% agreed that 18 should be the legal age to join a social networking site. Aside from keeping children safe from the thousands of sex offenders out in the viral universe, raising the age to 18 just might increase the rate of high school students hitting the honor roll, or better yet, graduating high school by focusing more in school instead of socializing.

Young girls and boys who are usually obsessed with such websites tend to use more mature vocabulary, as well as take more risqué and revealing photographs of themselves to appear older, which in itself seems like its own crime.

Parents should be responsible for providing their children with education about the dangers of using the Internet and should supervise them while they use it. Social networking sites should also have a more serious and secure way of verifying the age of their users.