When should kids be allowed to use social networking sites? By Jenney Cheever

Social networking sites have become a way of life for teens today. Sites like MySpace and Facebook allow teens to chat with friends, share photos and videos, support causes and play games. While all of those activities sound innocent enough, these types of social networking sites are not without danger. Posting a profile can expose your child to potential cyber hazards, such as Internet predators and cyber bullying. Before allowing your child to post a profile and use a social networking site, it is essential to make sure she is old enough to use them responsibly and safely. But how can you tell if your child is ready for social networking?

Check Age Limits
The two most popular social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace, require that users be at least 13 years of age. However, this does not mean that all 13 years olds are ready to use these sites. Before allowing your young teen to join, made sure he is old enough to understand the potential dangers involved, and that he knows how to keep himself safe while online.

No Identifying Information

Make sure your child knows not to reveal any identifying information about herself, such as her full name, school or address. It is best for kids to use a nickname, or just their first name when making a profile page. Make sure your child knows not to "friend" anyone she doesn't know in real life. Remind her that online friends are not the same as real-world friends, and that people can pretend to be someone they're not. Personal information should never be given to online friends, no matter how well you think you "know" them.  

Long-Term Consequences
It is also essential to make sure that your child understands that the Internet is visible to everyone, everywhere. Anything he posts on his page could possibly be viewed by anyone in the world. It is easy for younger kids to feel like what they are posting is only going to be viewed by their own friends, but in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Be sure your child knows not to post anything on his profile page that he wouldn't want to show Grandma or the school principal. Pictures and comments could come back to haunt your child years later when he's applying to colleges or looking for a job. Whenever something is posted, it's forever, because other people can download it and save it.  

Above all, use your own judgment when determining is social networking is appropriate for your child. You know your kid best!.

My personal opinion:

This article is talking about the consequences of using a social network and gives some advices to the parents to know when they can allow their child to use it.

They are two social networks that are the ones that are more used by the teens, Facebook and MySpace. With these social networks you can make a lot of things, like share photos, videos, also you can play games. These things can be addictive for the teens because they don’t realize the dangerous of something so simple.

The writer gives for the parents some advices to make sure that the children use it correctly. The first one is check ages limits, I’m completely agree with her because if a child is very young are not sufficiently mature to know if they are using correctly or not. The parents have to make sure that they understand the responsibility and know some of the consequences. The problem comes when without the permission of the parents the child make a social network, they can do it behind the parents it’s very difficult to control if they have a Facebook account.  It can influence the friends, nowadays everyone one have and speak about that social networks and it’s very difficult to ignore. Another advice is to control de information that you publish at the red. The child´s have to now that everyone can look that information. The writer explain that we cannot put in that webs personal information for example the place where we live, personally I think that every one put it. The person don’t realize that everyone can take that information and used for know about that person, also they can take the photos.

 I´m not agree in one think that the writer mention at the end of the article when tells that “other people can download it and save it”, because you can choose if you want to permit if people can download or not, these social networks give the opportunity to prohibit some thinks that help to control the privacy and also this social pages are make to entertain and share information. But we cannot forget all that points before using. 

To conclude, I think that parents should not permit children to us these social networks, In my opinion it´s more convenient for people are around 16 years old, this since is the time when you start to be aware of the consequences that internet make gave on their lives.

BY: ANA FIGUEREO