Social media age limits "meaningless"

Age restrictions on social media sites have been branded “meaningless” after it was claimed that 70% of eight- to 13-year-olds use the sites and 68% have their own smartphones.

CyberSafeIreland’s annual report also found 32% of children are speaking to strangers online every week while almost 20% of 12-year-olds and 10% of eight year-olds are spending more than four hours per day online.

Many of the largest and best known social media sites do have age restrictions in place. Facebook, for example, says it requires everyone to be at least 13 years old before they can create an account. It also says creating an account with false information “is a violation of our terms”, including accounts registered on behalf of someone under 13. Twitter’s rules also prohibit anyone under the age of 13 from creating accounts.

“There has been a significant spotlight in the media this year on the digital age of consent and lots of debate around what age is the ‘right age’ for children to start using technology more independently,” said CyberSafe-Ireland CEO Alex Cooney.

“The data we have gathered shows that nine-year-olds are likely to own a smartphone and be on social media, despite age restrictions and despite the digital age of consent being recently set at 16.”

She said the data her organisation collated highlighted the need to start education programmes with both parents from a young age. The CyberSafeIreland survey found that almost a third of children had either rarely or never discussed online safety with their parents.

It said that, with the online world and its dangers changing so rapidly, it was vital that parents maintain an ongoing dialogue with children about how to stay safe and to monitor the type of content and amount of time they are spending online.

“The reality is that we are not addressing online safety with our children either at home or in school early enough,” said Cliona Curley, CyberSafeIreland programme director and cybercrime investigation specialist.

“In some schools we visit, we find that, by sixth class, these discussions are almost coming too late. By the age of 13, we are finding that many children already have very established habits and patterns of behaviour online.

“It’s also why this year, we are introducing a dedicated third-class module. We need to teach children digital literacy skills so that they are able to critically assess information and make smart choices online.

“We urgently need to make the online safety of our children a national priority.”

Ms Cooney said it was “high time” social media firms did more to protect under-age users.

“In the absence of these well-resourced companies stepping up to the plate, then the Government should appoint a digital safety commissioner to enforce greater corporate responsiveness,” she said.

Source: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/social-media-age-limits-meaningless-867882.html