The article titled, Underage
Children and Social Networking, discussed how underage children are lying about
their age in order to gain membership and access to popular social networking
sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I
was shocked to learn from the article that children as young as nine years old
are misrepresenting their ages with permission from their parents. In my opinion, I think it starts out with the
parents. Parents should not allow their children
access to social networks. Parents must engage close monitoring and parental
controls in an effort to control their child’s computer access. But with busy schedules, in time, monitoring
diminishes and as the child grows into middle childhood and adolescence, he or
she could be participating in risky behavior.
The ISTE standards
provide: guidelines for parents to start
their children on the right path of being responsible stewards of
technology. I particularly like standard
number five, digital Citizenship, where students understand human, cultural,
and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical
behavior. If parents practiced this one
ISTE standard with their children, underage participation of social networking
would not be an issue.
ISTE standard six allows
underage students to demonstrate sound understanding of technology concepts,
systems, and operation. This standard is
important because students the internet is full of advertisements that could
lead to viruses, identity theft and sexual predators. When students understand how computer systems
work and how people can manipulate the system, they are less likely to click on
the flashy advertisements and enticing banners.
I think the article was
interesting and sad simply because how parents are allowing their children
access to adult social networking sites. But think about how the parents are behaving
on these sites and how they are sharing inappropriate pictures, friendships and
relationships.
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