Social Networking for Children
Reasons Against Allowing Children to Participate on Social Networks
Of the many dangers to children of participating on social networking sites, the most severe are those that can forever take away their childhoods and permanently damage their lives. The severity of issues pertaining to social networking is increasing, with 67% of all children in developing nations participating on social networks beginning as early as six years of age (Hertzel, 2000). From the horrific examples of how Richard Allen Davis approached and eventually molested and killed a twelve-year-old, to the reporter who later imitated his profile online and was able to get 5,000 children's names in a neighborhood not far from the crime scene (Hertzel, 2000) shows how woefully inadequate and lacking in enforcement Internet company's promise of security are. The hard reality is that there are a myriad of dangers to children online, from sexual predators, cyberbulling, health problems to the ethical, legal and morale issues for parents, school administrators considering Internet access and the Internet Service Providers.
Analysis of Cons of Social Networking for Children
The use of Facebook, MySpace and other social networks frequented by children are also teeming with sexual predators. In a study completed in 2009, MySpace found 90,000 sexual predators who had illegally registered on the site as children (Guo, 2008). If this wasn't enough to make parents and educators think twice about having children gain access to social networks, the
Registered sex offenders are online within minutes on these social networking sites, creating a danger for children that far surpass any other in the offline world.
Clearly, there needs to be greater safeguards in place to validate the identity of anyone using a social networking site, as research Dana Boyd has often reiterated in her studies (Boyd, Ellison, 2007). The reality that no one at Facebook or any of the social network wants to acknowledge is that these online communities are breeding grounds of sexual predators on a global scale, and have been responsible for thousands of children going missing or killed every year (Gray, Christiansen, 2010) (Hertzel, 2000).
Cyberbulling has continually grown over the last decade, with social networks being the primary catalyst and enabler of this threat to children. The National Crime Prevention Council states at 43% of all teens have been the victim of cyberbulling at one point in their lives (University of Gothenburg, 2010). In addition to the many studies that have quantified the effects of cyberbulling on children, the most striking is the story of Megan Meir in 2006, the victim of cyberbulling from a mother's friend who was impersonating a boy online (King, 2010). Social networks bring out the most neurotic nature of adults, as this women wanted to find out what Megan was saying about her daughter, so she impersonated a young man interested in Megan. The mother attacked Megan online when she realized she did not like her daughter, using the persona of the young man to do this. Megan committed suicide over the incident (King, 2010). This and many other examples show the dangers of social networks and how they have become a catalyst for neurotic, crazy…
