Web Safety NZ New Zealand Internet Safety
Kids Give False Information to get on Facebook. With the eminent demise of Bebo (www.bebo.com) , children are creating profiles on Facebook at a younger age.
Facebook requires a user to be at least 13 years of age but children are giving false information about their age to allow them to create a profile. In some instances, children as young as 9 or 10 are on Facebook.
In most cases, parents have no idea what their children are doing on the internet. Many of us assume our children are too well behaved to go behind our back and do something we may not approve of online.
The fact is that our children ARE creating profiles on Facebook at a younger age than they should. Children ARE deleting their history so mums and dads cannot see where they have been surfing to and parents can take control with minimum effort.
WebSafety NZ is educating parents in their home with their cyber safety assessment. They are explaining to parents WHAT they need to be aware of, depending on the age of their children. The service also includes helping parents install monitoring software and show them how to use it. The software will monitor, block, record and report on all activity a parent chooses. The base package is $99.
Young children on Facebook don’t want to be young. They want to be cool online and appear more mature. Unfortunately, it takes many years for maturity to develop, and these children do not understand consequences. As such they are a lot more vulnerable to giving away personal information and are risk of being bullied or preyed upon.
Installing an appropriate monitoring software product will allow parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing on the internet and address any concerns that may arise.