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Kerianne Cassidy

Facebook for First-Graders? The Social Media Giant Looks to Welcome Kids Under 13 | Hea... - 5 views

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    How young is too young? Are kids today really not interacting in person if they're busy building an online network?? My internet use wasn't policed when I was a kid, but then you couldn't do much via AOL dial-up! What happens when parents aren't as technologically adept as their kids?
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    I think this is not a good trend, although FB will probably make it happen anyway. It is already pretty obvious that today's teens do not know how to interact socially in a proper manner - they text constantly even while standing next to each other because they prefer to send messages and avoid f2f interaction; they construct sentences in a twitter-like manner. Kids need to form friendships and interact socially face-to-face, not just virtually. They need to speak to others live, know how to write coherent sentences, and not spend so many hours glued to their technical devices. Parents need to impose more guidelines. Librarians can help by assisting in finding age-appropriate websites for children. We don't need to take away the technology, but we do need to help teens and children use it in a better way.
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    I guess the logic is that kids under 13 are using the site anyway, by lying about their age or getting someone older to create an account for them, so perhaps the best course of action is to create a space specifically for them--with more restrictions and stricter privacy settings. I hope that this pre-teen space is diligently patrolled, and content vetted thoroughly before it gets posted online (sort of like having a forum moderator approve all posts before they appear on the site). I'm not sure if this is feasible....I suppose it depends on how many pre-teens sign on to this thing.
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    I. don't. like. this. My 12-year old wants a FB account simply because all his friends have one and not for any other reason. It just adds one more layer of policing that schools and parents have to be on top of. I am one of the lucky few parents whose kids are pretty good at self-policing their screen time, but I know that's rare. There are plenty of fun, age-appropriate sites for kids that age -- Pottermore comes to mind... my kids both signed up for accounts there and spend time doing the things tweens like to do, i.e. dueling their friends and socking away Galleons in their Gringotts bank accounts. If they spend a hour on Pottermore, then they know they have to go outside and shoot hoops for an hour. I am a little shocked, actually, that FB thinks tweens are a shoe-in market, since usually that demographic wants NOTHING to do with what their parents do... has FB really cracked the generation gap??
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    While I don't condone kids spending all their time on the internet, interacting with their friends through IM, I do understand the need for Facebook to create a space for kids under 13. Kids *are* using it anyway, so it only stands to reason (in my opinion) that FB do the responsible thing and police them. My step-sons both have accounts on FB. The oldest is now 13, so he's legitimate, but the youngest is 11 and he wanted one because his brother had one. He also so he could keep in touch with us (he's in Kansas, we're in NJ), so his step-father set up the account and monitors it. I would be a lot happier with him being in a policed-by-moderators environment so I didn't have to rely on his step-dad to do it. I think that there's an upside to the possible changes to FB, as long as it can be properly implemented and policed. I'm just an optimist, what can I say? And yes, I also believe that FB has possibly put a little crack in the generation gap.
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    The biggest question for me is how will the children under 13 who desire to have a facebook account react when they learn that to do it, the account must be connected to their parents account? At some point every child does something that they do not want their parents to know about..... would that be a deterrent? Would they continue to lie about their ages and use the other tips and tricks to fool the system? Back when I was 14-15 I had a "LiveJournal" account, that I willingly gave my mother access too. I had nothing to hide. But I lost several friends who felt betrayed that my mom was able to then see their posts through my account. I trusted my mom, but my friends didn't. Its a tricky web of social norms, relationships and technology.
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    I think this an inevitable situation because it's so easy to circumvent the system by just modifying the birth year. Facebook is probably just trying to protect themselves from future legal actions by letting the parents be responsible for accounts of their kids. I still don't like this but let's face the reality, Internet is so big and difficult to be policed.
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    Amanda, I think most young teenagers have accounts in online communities that they're not supposed to be on until they're a little older (those little boxes asking you whether you're over a certain age are pretty much ignored completely). I don't like the idea of young teenagers being on Facebook but my reason is more along the same lines as the first complaints about Facebook expanding: Facebook was awesome because it was a way for those in college to meet, look at each other's pictures and bios, and organize parties. Of course, it's turned into something much bigger but I'm still selfish about it: it's like I'm on vacation and I don't want to have to deal with the loud little kids jumping in the pool.
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    Just off the top of my head, I would say that 1st grade is definitely too young for a Facebook page. This article reminds me of one I read not too long ago about a mother who punished her daughter for posting pictures of herself pretending to drink by making her post new pictures of herself holding a sign warning against such behavior. The punishment photos went viral and served to teach the daughter a valuable lesson about putting compromising information on the internet.
Kerianne Cassidy

Facebook Users Who Are Under Age Raise Concerns - 1 views

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    Across the nation, millions of young people are lying about their ages so they can create accounts on popular sites like Facebook and Myspace. These sites require users to be 13 or older, to avoid federal regulations that apply to sites with younger members.
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    Across the nation, millions of young people are lying about their ages so they can create accounts on popular sites like Facebook and Myspace. These sites require users to be 13 or older, to avoid federal regulations that apply to sites with younger members.
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    The pros and cons of young people using social networking sites took on a whole new meaning for me (and this is news item was about 13-17 year olds -- not younger) when I saw this article in today's NYT: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/after-rapes-involving-children-skout-a-flirting-app-faces-crisis/?ref=todayspaper Yikes.
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    This is all very scary, my nephew is 11, but has had a facebook account for almost 2 years. Granted he is only friends with kids in his school, and family members, but he is so computer savvy, I not sure my sister can really know who he is talking to. I don't know what kind of families his friends come from, and if he is allowing contact from "friends of friends". When Wiklund said "This is my worst fear." he is not being over-dramatic; it's appalling that people seek out ways to abuse materials to get to children. It is going to have to fall on the shoulders of parents, to really know what their children are up to at all times. This is sad because you can't just let a kid go out a ride their bike all day, all around town, like I used to, however this also means that they're spending more time indoors, and on the computer, which we know is also not safe....it seems like there is not right answer for parents.
Meaghan Corbett

danah boyd | apophenia - 4 views

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    danah boyd (all lowercase) is one of the leading researchers and thinkers within this developing field of social informatics. Her blog analyzes and provides commentary on social networking and how it's changing the way we communicate with each other.
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    A passionate advocate for LGBTQ youth and outspoken opponent of bullying, cyber or otherwise, she's written extensively about Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi, and the role played by serious misuse of digital technology to malign an individual. She also goes into how "media-driven narrative" has shaped public perception of this case: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2012/02/24/stop-the-cycle-of-bullying.html
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    Thanks for sharing this...I saw danah boyd give a keynote at a conference here in Maryland called Theorizing the Web and she was definitely a big deal. Actually, come to think of it, the notes from that conference might have some information to share here as well.
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    An excerpt from boyd's notes on her speech about "the power of fear in networked cultures" "The tools that we build are getting repurposed around the globe by people with all sorts of different agendas. They're being used by activists to challenge the status quo, but they're also being used by the status quo to assert new kinds of authority. People are building the new networks of power on the technological networks that we've generated and they're reinforcing existing power structures. "Through social media, we're ramping up the attention economy. We are setting in motion new networks. We like to think of ourselves as disrupting power systems and, indeed, that's what we were doing for a long time. But now, those in power are leveraging our tools to exert new forms of power. Fear is one of the tools that's being used. People are finding ways to put fear into our systems. "Social media is no longer the great disrupter. It is now part of the status quo. Are we prepared for what that means? Are we prepared for the ecosystem that we've created? Do we even understand how our systems are being employed by those hellbent on maintaining power in a networked age? "I don't have good answers to these socio-technical conundrums. But I think that these are important issues and I need your help in figuring out where to go from here."
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    good find! you will encounter more of her work later on
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    I second on the good find comment! Her post about Ravi's conviction was interesting, not only because it hits home because it happened at RU, but it brings up some extremely important topics when it comes to online bullying, the use of technology/media in the private/personal sphere, privacy etc. And she closes with saying she would hope this case would change others' actions and outlook on the harmful uses of technology and invasion of privacy, but unfortunately it most likely won't and we will continue to see these types of things happening.
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    Thank for that! I'm really enjoying this, and it is helping me think about the culture of unease we seem to be living in. http://talks.webstock.org.nz/speakers/danah-boyd/culture-fear-attention-economy/ where
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    I really like her talk on the culture of fear, and how it relates to the rapidly expanding array of mediums in which to spread this culture. This is a nice counterpoint to Howard Rheingold's view of some of the positive uses of social media to promote engagement and change rather than this focus on isolation and fear.
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    One thing to remember is that Rheingold was very Utopic in his early writings. That becomes more critical later on.
Amanda Jacobsen

More Than Rumor: Social Media Can Wreak Havoc on the Market - 1 views

http://bx.businessweek.com/social-networking/view?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fsap%2F2012%2F02%2F23%2Fmore-than-rumor-social-media-can-wreak-havoc-on-the-market%2F%3Ffeed%3Drss_home H...

Social Media facebook business damage_havoc

started by Amanda Jacobsen on 13 Jun 12 no follow-up yet
Kerianne Cassidy

For Children, a Social Network With Training Wheels - 2 views

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    A social networking site for kids under 10 developed by a concerned parent.
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    Interesting -- I wasn't too keen on the business model, but it doesn't seem to matter because it appears the site is no longer in service. When you go to its homepage it redirects you to other "family-friendly" sites like Club Penguin and Disney social networks. So goes life on the wild, wooly web... :)
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    This is a very interesting idea.. At first I thought that maybe the idea of preselected phrases were a bit much, but then I really thought about the goal of teaching children how to be social in an accountable way. My nephew wanted a facebook page when he was 7, and was on my sisters site all the time. It's natural for children to want to be a part of what is happening socially around them, because as a species we are social; it's not practical to expect children not to partake in these activities.
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