What Is The Appropriate Age For a Kid For Using Social Media

One of the biggest conundrums faced by today’s parents is when to allow their kids to use social media websites.

For the healthy growth of your child, it is necessary to follow age restrictions on social media. Learn what are they and how to manage it with parental control apps. Read also: An Age-by-Age Guide for Children and Smartphones

Why do we need age restrictions on social media?

A child younger than 13 years is not mature enough to have developed cognitive functions for impulse control.

Any mistake or misjudgment, which can potentially affect their future, cannot be erased from the web. If online predators target a child, they cannot deal with the situation at a young age.

Let us find out the age restrictions on some of the most reputed social networking sites that connect the members on a common platform.

Which social media websites have an age restriction?

Facebook

• Facebook does not allow children younger than 13 years to create an account. Though in some jurisdictions, the age limit may be higher, for example – in South Korea and Spain, kids above 14 can use Facebook.
• Facebook clearly states that creating an account with false information is a violation of their terms. And it asks the parents whose underage child has created an account on Facebook to help them delete it.
• Users can also fill the form to notify an account belonging to an underage user, and Facebook promptly deletes it.

Instagram

• Instagram requires its users to be at least 13 years old before they can create an account (in some jurisdictions, this age limit may be higher).
• Instagram also asks users to fill out a form and notify them about the accounts being operated by underage so that they can delete them if they cannot verify that someone over 13 years old is managing the account.

Twitter

• Calling it age screening, Twitter also requires the user to be at least 13 years old, or in the case of Periscope 16 years old, to use their services. 
• But, during the signup process, a kid can enter a fake date of birth, and there are no preventive measures to supervise that.

Snapchat

• Like other social media websites, Snapchat has a minimum age requirement of 13 years old. But it is easy to circumvent this by providing the concocted date of birth, and the service has no way of checking.
• The app is more alarming because it makes the users believe that their images will be safe as they will be removed after a specified time, so kids become bold and might share an embarrassing image. And if the receiver takes a screenshot before that, then it can be circulated easily.

For other platforms, such as Pinterest, Tumblr, and Kik, the minimum age is 13; for Vine, Tinder, and Yik Yak, it’s 17. YouTube allows persons, 18 or above to be account holders, but a 13-year-old can sign up with a parent’s permission.

Parenting tips: How to restrict underage children from using social media

• Educate them about the skills they’d need when starting to use social media.
• Keep an eye on their browsing history.
• Inform them about the online dangers – cyberbullying, pornography, online predation, sexting, etc.
• Download and use parental control apps to supervise the age limitations on social media and to block those apps if you find them in your child’s phone. You can also disable Play Store, prohibiting them from downloading any new app.

When a child signs up for an account with a fabricated birth date, they cannot have the protection offered by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and their personal information is at risk.
According to research, by the time kids are 10, approximately 59% of them have already used a social network, 52% of 8 to 16-year-olds admit of ignoring Facebook’s age restriction.
The age restrictions on social media are not law; they are recommendations. It is easy for a child to fake birthday and to create an account. That is why a parent needs to monitor their children’s online activities with parental control apps for Android.

Top 5 Reasons Why Parents Need Parental Control

A thought, always running in the background of a parent’s mind is about the safety of their child. The parental control app provides you with the answers to all your child-related security concerns.

We were never so dependent on screens to get through our lives, and they keep demanding more of our attention! Among all the electronic devices, smartphones enjoy the status of being ‘most favorite’ with the kids and adults alike due to obvious reasons.

Although mobile apps enable our children to see the world closer in a different light, parents have to be extra conscious and supportive to help their children find a perfect balance between smartphones and life.

Let us understand the role and importance of parental control in making a safer world for today’s digital generation.

Top 5 Reasons why Parents need Parental Control

• Solves your concern about the safety of kids

Angela Green gave a voice to every concerned parent, stating, “I don't know what's going on, but I just want to get my kids to safety, that's it.” Are we capable of preserving the most valuable resource of this world – children?

For most parents, children are the paramount priority, but we cannot deny that they have to work hard to give their children the best of everything. Even though they want nothing more, they cannot be there with their children all the time.

With parental control apps, you get alerted when your child is under threat. You can take the necessary steps to ensure their safety and let them know that you will always have their back.

Many of the apps let you assign a sensible virtual boundary around your child based on their routine. Read also: 10 Reasons to Use Parental Control Apps for Kids’ Safety

• Allows you to block unsuitable apps

At any public place or even in a family gathering, you’d find a child as young as 2-3 years operating smartphone like an expert. You might not know at what age a child should get a cell phone, but you must realize the impacts of exposure to inappropriate content on their young minds.

Children are too naive to understand the ramifications of their digital addiction. With a child tracking app, you can block any gaming, dating, gambling, or adult apps.

• Enables you to monitor and set the child’s speed-limit

Age never guarantees maturity or the ability to differentiate right from wrong. And when teenage hormones are raging, kids hardly remain in the control of parents.

All kids can think about is taking risks and experimenting with newer things. Some of the kid’s safety apps enable you to set a speed limit on their vehicles with you getting a notification whenever they exceed it.

• Helps to manage a child’s screen time

We know that there is an ocean of content and apps on the internet that can prove to be malignant for your impressionable child. The dependency on digital devices plays havoc on their physical, mental, emotional, and social state.

Some of the child tracking apps might permit you to customize the home screen on a kid’s device, where you can keep the useful apps only. You can also set reasonable time-limits for individual apps.

They let you define the bedtime (when the phone can’t be operated) and also set a limit for other apps.

• Safeguards your child’s personal information

The reach of electronic devices is by far the most prominent one, whether it is a toddler, a preschooler, an adolescent, a teenager, or an adult! Teenagers remain online all the time, storing confidential information on their smartphones.

In a scenario such as this, the loss or theft of a phone can be extremely threatening. With GPS tracking feature enabled in parental controls, you can locate the device. A few of them also offer to restore the phone to factory settings remotely.

Without any doubt, playtime is far more valuable for a young child's brain development than electronic media. It would be irrational to expect kids to behave like mature adults overnight; we can gently push them to acquire the best digital etiquette.

Bit Guardian is a fantastic app that arms you with all of the functions mentioned above and many more. Let us not leave our children in a lurch, opt to digital monitoring by using and downloading the Parental Control App.