How old do you think children should be before they join social networks like Facebook and MySpace?

The Vox QoTD got me thinking. I’m not a parent, nor will I be for hopefully a very long time. But I am an internet user, who has been part of the online world from a very young age. I’ve looked at the answers to this question on the Vox homepage, and most of them come from parents who are scared of their children being corrupted/groomed online, and suggest ridiculous ages before they let their kids join websites like Facebook and MySpace. Numbers like 12, 14 and 16 pop up frequently, and even then they say they’ll put in parental controls to keep tabs on their children.

Just FYI, parental controls are bloody obvious. When you’re on a public network or a work area, where your activity is monitored, you subconsciously don’t visit the sites you normally visit at home, because you don’t want your boss knowing what you do on Facebook. It’s the same with parental controls. Children with parental controls installed on their computers will know not to go on the websites they normally go on at friends’ houses, in case you might be watching.

If you don’t think your tween/teen has had some form of persona on a social networking site already, then the chances are, you’re wrong. Maybe they signed up at their friend’s house, putting in a variety of fake details so they won’t get caught by you; a fake name, a different picture, a relative’s birthday. Your children are smarter than you give them credit for.

You see, an online life is just an extension of real life. Parties are planned, pictures are uploaded, and gossip is discussed on websites like Facebook. All too often a person without an account on one of these websites will be left out because people just forget; they assume that everyone is on the same website as they are. 12/13 year olds are no exception to this – they plan birthday parties, arrange meetings with friends and do the same things a college student would do, only possibly in a more innocent way. More and more young people are moving their social lives to the internet, and leaving others behind.

I started playing around on the internet when I was 8 or 9 without any parental supervision. My mother is computer-illiterate, and there weren’t that many parental controls for the Windows 95 system, anyway. In all my time on the internet, I managed to learn the good and bad things for myself. I chatted to many people online, but if someone made me feel uncomfortable, I blocked and/or reported them.
If someone asked me personal questions like where I went to school or my address, it just seemed logical to ignore and block them. The one thing I was encouraged not to do was to upload pictures of myself online. I didn’t have a webcam, there were no photos scanned in, and with the vast number of free avatars and display pictures available for free, why would I need a picture?
Without being encouraged to explore, I probably would never have learnt how my computer worked, how websites were created, and who I could and could not trust on the internet. I’ve developed ninja skillz from being left to my own devices. ^_^

The one thing that’s different from my internet experience and the experiences of those using it now is the abundance of social networking websites, where people are encouraged to put down every single detail of their lives. But, to balance it out, younger people get much more education than I did when I first began using the internet. From an early age, young people are constantly being surrounded with tips and advice on how to stay safe on the web. Don’t meet anyone you know online, never give out any personal information, never share any pictures of yourself… All the stuff that took me years to learn for myself.

Most of it boils down to common sense, really. >.> Anyone you’re communicating on the internet with is basically a stranger, no matter how long you’ve talked to each other for. You don’t know how they walk, talk, if they have any neuroses – all the things that would normally form your first impressions of someone.

Would anyone go off into a secluded park with some stranger they’ve met on a bus? No. It’s not that much different with an online acquaintance. To stretch out this long metaphor, you’re all on an online bus. If a random stranger you met on the other side of town offers to walk you home alone, well, you see where this is going…

If parents don’t let their children become experienced in the online world, then they’re going to have problems when they finally get a chance to experience it. As long as good judgement is taught from an early age, then parents shouldn’t have any qualms about trusting their children to make the right decisions. After all, trust is what it all boils down to in the end; the earlier parents learn to trust their children online, the better.

Just think about it this way: an 8 year old needs help when they want to go somewhere. A 14 year old doesn’t. It’s easier to stop an 8 year old from meeting their online friend than it is a 14 year old.