My brother was promoted, my friend got engaged, another friend got married. How did I find out about these things? I read it on Facebook and thousands of other details about my friends' lives too. People will express general posts, "
Im one week and Im craving chocolate mints!!!" to specific details about their lives or the lives of other, "Long day at the ER on Saturday. August was hurt pretty bad while swimming." Is this the point of social media?
I volunteer and mentor at the US Dream Academy and there I have learned about one of the new fun things for kids to play--Weeworld. This is basically a site for kids to play games and chat with other kids, or so it was intended for. However, grown ups are able to get on as well and disguise who they are by creating a young avatar and pretending to be younger. This can put kids in danger of telling an adult particular details about their lives that put themselves in danger.
So would an age limit help to alleviate the problem? Many sites have put an age limit on obtaining an account, but if a child's friends get around that with a fake email then why shouldn't they? Is it the parents responsibility to watch how the child is participating in these forums? Is it time to give people an internet ID like a Social Security Number? Would that cause more problems than it would resolve? Where do we go from here?
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