Should Children Be Allowed on Facebook - Essay Example

 Allowing Children on Facebook The article in this source pertains to the ethical dilemma that the emergence of social media has plagued modern day’s society. Social media websites like Facebook, although serve as formal business platforms and socialization agents but the young users are more vulnerable to their detrimental consequences (Marsico, 2010). Mark Zukerberg, the founder of Facebook, is diligent in his efforts to extend the rights to sign up to children under the age of 13. At the moment, 7.5 million children below the age of 12 are currently signed up but this is not official (Dellantonia, 2011). The content of the article, which is a rather apprehensive note from a parent’s blog, is able to attract much debate. Two perspectives have been presented; one that children under the age of 13 should not be legally allowed to join Facebook and the other one is that children who do join Facebook under the legal age can be monitored through proper parental surveillance. But the question that arises is that to what extend can the parents monitor a child’s Facebook account? (Dellantonia, 2011). Research shows that children are most likely and the first ones to use technology for morally wrong reasons. And thus, when these young children are exposed to such unlimited freedom, results can be debilitating (Junghyun, 2011). On one hand, it is true that Facebook currently has millions of children lying about their ages on profiles (Dellantonia, 2011) and there is no real way to detect it but if Facebook complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, it can still have 13 year olds join the Facebook as that is a profitable opportunity for Facebook, but in that case it will have to invest in developing a system which will require parents’ informed consent before the child joins in and that is not profitable for Facebook (Kashmir, 2011). Even when children do not initiate illegal activity, they are often subjects to the illicit behavioural practices of those with deviant purposes and notorious plans. The young children and young adults continue to be victims of many heinous crimes led through the internet including drug trafficking, bullying, stalking, and pornography (Fodeman, 2009). In the Waukesha County, Wisconsin, for example, a boy was convicted of having at least 300 nude photos of boys aged 13 to 19. He posed as a girl on Facebook and used the photos were used to black mail some of those boys to engage in performing sexual acts with him (Marsico, 2010). When such is the nature of bullying, one may think the extent to which parents can protect their children from surveillance. Undercover police has reported several child pornography incidences which the children are not even aware of (Rommelman, 2009). The success and popularity of social networking sites like Face Book, Twitter, and Orkut etc have resulted in a proliferation of information misuse. The dangers of uploading photos, fake profiles, pornographic images and leakage of personal information are all amongst the potential sources of conflict. Although Facebook already provides privacy settings in order to protect your personal information like securing your accounts, making the passwords long and “strong”, and encouraging you to block or report certain profiles or people that may seem obscene yet this is not a sufficient practice for children who cannot even understand the underlying implications of such practices puts children in vulnerable thresholds and the sensitivity of their personal information is immense (Gonzales, 2011). However, the article does not highlight the rapid advancement of education curriculum, which has made it impossible to make our education systems obliterate and not allow children on the internet at all. So a ban is just not a viable option as children already have access to internet and social networking sites like Facebook and My Space so the issue is how to restrict this access with certain limitations. And that’s what Facebook will eventually have to do (Farr, 2009). The damage done to children is much more subjective in nature than the legal obligations may suggest. The mere exposure of children to the illicit content on facebook can be damaging. Further, the pressure of conformance with the societal benchmarks of making a lot of friends, adding more people, having more “likes” and uploading more pictures in attempt to have a heightened self esteem is immense. Moreover, parental control or Zuckerberg’s attempt to impose stricter privacy controls in not going to solve the problem of exposing children to mass marketing attempts (Mitu, 2011). The various web banners and ads on the Facebook, the product positioning done in games played on Facbook by Levis in It Girl for example, can be all unethical if exposed to children as young as 12 year olds. So who is going to be responsible for that and who hold the ultimate accountability to this sort of manipulation? (Anderson, 2009). The article further renders parental controls and parental awareness as the only solution to have safe access of children to these social networking sites. But in my opinion what’s missing is the role of educational institutions in shaping the behaviour of young children. Teachers should teach their children the ethics and moral dimensions of cyberspace, ways to protect themselves from any harm and warn them about the consequences of talking to strangers or uploading personal photos, video clips or even keeping their profiles open for others to view (DeFranco, 2011). To combat such activity, efforts on a more federal level are needed. As the foremost effort, the Department of Homeland Security in USA aims to promote awareness through its awareness campaign, about cyber crime and how to prevent it by engaging the young people in an interactive session with the Homeland Security representative. These representatives are themselves well aware of the social media and its implications amongst the youth. Areas which will be highlighted include bullying, privacy and physical safety (Metropolitan State University, 2011). Hence, overall the article is not very comprehensive but still highlights a very important contradictory debate of the modern day (Dellantonia, 2011). References Anderson, D. R. (2009). Children, Media and Methadology. American Behavorial Scientist , 1204-1219. DeFranco, J. F. (2011). Teaching Internet Security, Safety in Our Classrooms. Techniques: Connecting Education and Careers , 52-55. Farr, G. (2009). Mad Magazine to Facebook: what have we learned? Teacher Librarian Vol. 36 , 30-32. Fodeman, D. (2009). The Impact of Facebook on our Students Vol.36. Teacher Librarian , 36-40. Gonzales, L. A. (2011). Mirror, Mirror on my Facebook Wall: Effects of Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem. Behaviour and Social Networking Vol. 14 , 78-83. Marsico, Edward M. (2010). Social Networking Websites: Are My Space and Facebook the Fingerprints of the Twenty-First Century? Widener Law Journal Vol. 19 , 967-976. Junghyun, K. (2011). The Facebook Paths to Happiness: Effects of the Number of Facebook Friends and Self-Presentation on Subjective Well-Being. Behaviour and Social Networking Vol. 14 , 359-364. Kashmir, H. (2011). Mark Zuckerberg Is Wrong About Kids Under 13 Not Being Allowed on Facebook. Forbes , 24. Dellantonia, K. J. (2011, October 13). Motherlode. Retrieved October 23, 2011, from The New York Times: http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/should-children-be-allowed-on-facebook/?scp=2&sq=facebook&st=cse Metropolitan State University. (2011). US Department of Homeland Security and Local Cyber Security Experts to Present at Free Cyber Citizen Forum in Saint Paul. Regional Business News . Mitu, B. M. (2011). Television's Impact on Today's People and Culture. Economics, Management and Financial markets , 916-921. Rommelman, N. (2009). Anatomy of a Child Pornographer. Reason Vol. 41 , 30-37. Read More