News

As the parent of a pre-teen, I was surprised to read about a new social media platform, myFirst Social Circle, for children aged four to 12 to use social media ( ). While I strongly support educating young children about online safety, and the benefits and pitfalls of social media – including the dangers related to scams, doxxing and cyber bullying – I wonder if there is a need for an app to do this, especially when it may encourage youngsters to be glued to a mobile device at such a young age.  The app also places a heavy responsibility on parents or guardians to manage their children’s use. Parents have to approve contacts, determine who can interact with their children via the app, tag contacts to various relationship groups, check on their children’s posts and decide who gets to see those posts, and even download a version of the app themselves.   While they have those controls, parents will not have access to private messages, where cyber bullying often happens. Children may not want to get in trouble with their contacts by sharing these messages with their parents, which would defeat the purpose of educating children about online safety in the first place.  Children will discover and dive headlong into social media platforms, like Instagram or TikTok, when parents deem them old enough to own mobile devices, and when they see their friends sharing content and communicating via these platforms.   There is really no need to encourage our children to start using social media while they are in pre-school, kindergarten or primary school. Surely, parents and guardians can find other interactive and offline ways to educate children about online safety and online harm, without proactively planting a mobile device in their hands at such a tender age.