How young is too young for Facebook?

[Winston Smith]

My cousin's 10 year-old daughter is on Facebook. Here are a few exeprts from her Profile...

Relationship Status: In a Relationship

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interested In: Men
Looking For: Friendship
Dating

I've seen updates from her page for her "Lover of the Day" and other stuff like that.

Her parents are imbiciles*, and I'm certain they are not monitoring her internet activity or otherwise teaching her safe computing habits. I just think Facebook is not a good place for a 10 year-old girl to be romping around unsupervised.

Is it me? I just turned 40, and even though I'm an IT Guy™ and pretty tech-savvy, I'm willing to accept that I'm just too old to really 'get' Facebook.

Thoughts?

*With a little encouragement, I'd be willing to regale you with a few stories about these two nitwits.

[Omar Little]

10 is too young, IMHO, especially with info like that. I think high school is about the right age.

[Omar Little]

*With a little encouragement, I'd be willing to regale you with a few stories about these two nitwits.


....oh, and consider yourself encouraged.

[auRa]

Facebook's minimum age requirement is 13, actually, though they don't really seem to monitor it actively as such. If you felt mean, you could report her to FB Administration.

As for factors other than age restrictions; yeah, I think a 10-year-old is a bit too young to be on FB. I'm not sure what a 10-year-old would get out of a social networking site except, I dunno, Farmville or something.

[bearman217]

I agree that 10 years old is too young to be on facebook. First off, there are some games/applications that are explicit in nature or even suggestive in nature such as the "Lover of the Day." Furthermore, since her parents are obviously not monitoring her internet access, it is extremely dangerous for her as there are many perverts out there who will try to take advantage of her through facebook. I feel that 13 is a good age to start using facebook, but depending on the maturity of a child that age is variable as well, to me at least.

[TruCelt]

:: Dons toga and begins Animal House style chant:: "Sto-ries sto-ries sto-ries!!"

As for the child it's tough. I don't think it would be too young if her parent ws on there with her. It's much to young to be romping around alone.

[Darth Sensitive]

Senior in high school is too young.

/guy who had to wait till he had a college e-mail address to sign up

[Leaffan]

There's no definitive answer here. My kids are 11 and 12 and are on there. (And have been for a couple of years, at least.) I don't see it as being a big deal. Of course we're not nitwit parents as these folks apparently are.

Facebook can be a fun place for kids to hang out. I try to glance at their activity from time to time, but don't intrusively monitor it. I'm "friends" with the 11 year old; the 12 year old wants nothing to do with me as a "friend." She's a good kid though, and we get along otherwise. I'm "friends" with a lot of her friends who have inexplicably invited me.

I don't think it's so much of a too young issue. You need to be involved with your kids, raise them properly and give them some trust and some freedom. I can't imagine how I would have felt at 10 if all my friends shared this meeting place and I was told by my parents that I couldn't join in. My parents trusted me at that age to be gone from the house for the entire day, and didn't have a clue where I was, nor did they care or worry.

[Ann Onimous]

10 is too young, especially if the child's activities are not monitored. Our kids are almost 12 and 11, and they are not on Facebook, and will not be until they are at least 13. And they have a requirement even then: mom and dad are to be their first friends. And I plan on monitoring their activites very closely until they reach an age that I feel I don't have to do it any longer. That may be 15: it may be 30. We'll see.

[Winston Smith]

....oh, and consider yourself encouraged.

Her father, John, is an alcoholic deadbeat. He's got a couple of disability claims that he thinks will pay off, so he won't work. My cousin (the wife/mom) was running a hair salon for a while, and he used it as his personal piggy bank and bankrupted it in less than two years. He bought a brand new heavy duty pickup truck with a plow (it probably cost +/- $40K), drove it for a couple months, and decided it wasn't good enough, so went out and traded it on a bigger and mroe expensive plow truck. Both were financed. I can only imagine how much money he lost in the deals, what with instant depreciation of new vehicles and the exorbitant cost of the trucks. Whatever. He also bought himself a Chevy Corvette convertable. I think the best year the Salon had was around $150K before expenses, salaries, overhead, etc. He'd just go in there and take money out of the register, or go to the bank and withdraw thousands of dollars.

He's cheated on my cousin at least a couple times that I know of. Probably many, many more.

He has a mullet.

His typical attire is sneakers, sweat pants and a white wife beater t shirt.

He looks a little bit like Bobcat Goldthwait.

[Winston Smith]

:: Dons toga and begins Animal House style chant:: "Sto-ries sto-ries sto-ries!!"

As for the child it's tough. I don't think it would be too young if her parent ws on there with her. It's much to young to be romping around alone.

He came over to my house one time a few years ago, looked around, and said "I always thought you'd do better than this." And commented on my recent layoff. I had found a job before my layoff became effective, but that fact escaped him. I live in a modest home that's within my means, that cost $140,000 more than his house, and my wife doesn't work. These facts also escaped him.

He once engaged my father-in-law in a discussion about "the pizza business". My father-in-law was a Senior VP of Operations at a well-known pizza chain resteraunt before his death. He was hugely successful. Deadbeat John made and delivered pizzas for a local pizza place. He offered my father-in-law advice about how to run the resteraunt.

He lost his house to foreclosure. Then got evicted from the apartment to which they fled for non-payment. He's 'borrowed' a few thousand dollars from my mother to keep the family afloat financially.

He bought a trailer and a bunch of landscaping equipment on credit, then sold it all without paying for it.

[Winston Smith]

He was 'co-owner' of a tanning salon at which there was a huge scandal: There were peep-holes in the walls of the changing rooms and tanning bed rooms. Place got closed down.

[Winston Smith]

He tells everyone (i.e. his wife, her mom, my mom, etc.) that the reason he goes to strip clubs is because the women there don't throw themselves at him like women do everywhere else.

[ShelliBean]

Wow. Yeah, she's probably already got daddy issues, I'm guessing?

For me, 10 would be too young. Mine is 9 and I have forbidden it "until I change my mind." I have a friend whose daughter (10) is on there but the mother is her friend and goes through it regularly to clean up friends and emails. She is very strict about who her daughter has contact with but the relationship is one where I do believe her daughter would tell her if someone she didn't know contacted her.

I guess it depends on the kid, same as it does for lots of thing. My son is simply not mature enough to handle it. I think he would be easily tricked by a stranger or at the very least spend even more time in front of a screen than he already does.

[Marlitharn]

Any age would be too young if her parents are just throwing her to the lions without monitoring her. My 11 year old has had an account for about a year; the deal is, I have her password, but I won't use it unless she gives me a reason to (or my fish need to be resurrected on Fish World). I've also set it up so anything that gets posted on her wall, or sent to her as a message, automatically forwards to my email. She's not allowed to friend anyone she doesn't actually know in real life, and among her friends are her older brother, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, all of whom keep an eye on her doings as well as I do.

So far it's working out; she's a pretty level-headed kid, I'm keeping my fingers crossed she stays that way through the teenage years.

[Chessic Sense]

40. Oh, wait, how young...

6th grade. That's when kids actually start caring about what their friends think of them. That's when they start real-life social networking. Before that, there's no reason to take the risk and let them sign up.

[VernWinterbottom]

My wife and I let our nine year old daughter on facebook so that she could play FarmVille and Pet Society with us. She is now playing Island Paradise and My Town, too.

Her friends are all close relatives or close family friends.

I actually find the games we play on facebook to be better for her than some of the stuff on Nickelodeon. Nick is nothing but a bunch of really aggressive marketing for its shows and its advertisers' products.

The ads on facebook are much more along the lines of "Earn a college degree online," while Nick's are all "Find i-Carly toys in your Happy Meal!!!"

[umop ap!sdn]

13 is definitely too young. What age depends on their individual maturity level but generally I'd say probably around 15-16. Just from thinking back on how I was in my teen years and whether someone at that stage should frequent a website with the kind of privacy/safety concerns that these social sites have anymore.

[Old Lady Voice]When I was their age we didn't have no fancy shmancy Facebook. *shakes cane*[/OLV] Sorry, couldn't resist. :D

And I plan on monitoring their activites very closely until they reach an age that I feel I don't have to do it any longer. That may be 15: it may be 30.
30, really? Once they're 18 it's their life to do with as they please.... goodness, if my parents were that overbearing I'd unfriend them for sure.

[Lynn Bodoni]

He was 'co-owner' of a tanning salon at which there was a huge scandal: There were peep-holes in the walls of the changing rooms and tanning bed rooms. Place got closed down. And the hits just keep on coming. I am so sorry for this kid. She clearly needs much more parenting and supervision than she's getting, or is likely to get. She can easily, if she hasn't already, find a man who's willing to be her lover.

Hell, Daddy isn't mature enough to be let out on his own. And I don't know why Mommy puts up with him.

[purplehorseshoe]

Sounds to me like Facebook is likely to be the least of the kid's problems.

::shakes head sadly::

[BigT]

There's no definitive answer here. My kids are 11 and 12 and are on there. (And have been for a couple of years, at least.) I don't see it as being a big deal. Of course we're not nitwit parents as these folks apparently are.

Facebook can be a fun place for kids to hang out. I try to glance at their activity from time to time, but don't intrusively monitor it. I'm "friends" with the 11 year old; the 12 year old wants nothing to do with me as a "friend." She's a good kid though, and we get along otherwise. I'm "friends" with a lot of her friends who have inexplicably invited me.

I don't think it's so much of a too young issue. You need to be involved with your kids, raise them properly and give them some trust and some freedom. I can't imagine how I would have felt at 10 if all my friends shared this meeting place and I was told by my parents that I couldn't join in. My parents trusted me at that age to be gone from the house for the entire day, and didn't have a clue where I was, nor did they care or worry.

I wouldn't be admitting to illegal behavior here. (TOS's are supposed to have the force of law.)

[Algher]

Middle School is when it became part of the game for my son. He asked, I allowed in return for full access AND he "friends" me. In exchange, I NEVER post to his wall, but reserve the right to ask questions.

The only issue I have is that it means the the middle school drama follows the kids home at night and on weekends through FB and texting. When I was a kid, once I got I was free until the next morning.

[emmaliminal]

I got a friend request recently from a 12-year-old -- she's the daughter of close friends. I don't know how much they monitor her online. She's a pretty good kid, and very smart. But I really wish they hadn't let her do this, because while I don't want to hurt her feelings by not friending her, I also don't really want to share with her all the things I want to share with my adult friends. Not that there's anything going on in my life at the moment -- let alone stuff going on in my life that I talk about on FB -- that would be *inappropriate* for her to hear about, but... I just don't want to have to be thinking about 12-year-olds in the context of my social life all the time. I can't simply friend her and then put her on the privacy exceptions lists for everything, because smart as she is, she's sure to pick up on it when her parents know things about me from FB that she hasn't read.

[Autolycus]

As a general rule, I'd say 8th grade or high school, depending on the child's maturity level.

[LSLGuy]

As a general rule, nobody of any age should be on facebook.

[StrangeBird]

Not that long ago there was a news story where I live about a adult man befriending a girl on Facebook (she was 12 I think) and then arranging to meet her in 'secret' at a nearby park or somewhere.

Fortunately, the girl told her mother, who notified the police.

I'd be really concerned about a 10 year old on Facebook, particularly if her parents aren't keeping tabs.

[missred]

My almost 12 year old great nephew is on FB. Among his friends are his mom, grandparents, great grandparents, me, and most of his aunts, uncles and great aunts and uncles. I think that there are only five or six friends outside the family. He is also very well monitored with his internet time in general. Under conditions like this, I think it's OK.