Facebook Age Limit

Facebook. Today, this social networking site is the second most-used website in the world, after Google. It is the most popular social networking site in the UK, US and AUS with over 500 million members worldwide, nearly every single person reading this would have seen or heard of it. But what people don’t see is the dark side of Facebook, the side with horrific cyber-bullying, awful paedophilia, severe addictions and frightening stalking. Being a parent, I don’t want my young children subjected to these kinds of issues and neither would many parents around the world but nothing is being done. We must get this site under control instead of letting it tear away our children and the way we can do this is by not letting children under 16 have use of Facebook.
Bullying is a very serious and present issue with children in our day and age. Although bullying goes on in many ways, a new and more alarming way of tormenting our children is rising, Cyber-bullying. Bullies are no longer restricted to the hours of the school day, they can attack our kids at any time, from anywhere, as long as their connected to Facebook. Our children, the most important parts of our lives, are exposed to risk due to Facebook and yet we let them start Facebook at 13. Some parents even let their children lie about their age to sign up. But I argue that even a minimum age of 13 is too young. A recent study by the Child Health Promotion Research Centre at Edith Cowan University found that “65 percent of Year 4 students experienced covert bullying, with this number decreasing to 35 percent of Year 9 students.” Therefore 10 to 15 year olds are at great risk and cyber bullying is a large part of that. We can no longer sit and do nothing about these awful statistics. We must make Facebook change its laws so that minors cannot join and also inform parents to not let their children join under the required age.
Bullying is not the only problem with under 16’s using the social network. Paedophiles and