Social media for pre-teen children

[englishdrew02]

Hi, I've two younger children and they've really struggled with social isolation of late. I created a simple chat site for them and their friends, however, it's occurred to me that there really is no social media site for children under 13. Does it not make sense to offer younger / pre-teen children a dedicated site to avoid the dangers of mainstream platforms?

I've created a forms.gle/uA6etQB5pFDRSJUF9) which I'd love to get your thoughts on (and that of your children), to explore whether this is something a dad of two could take up the mantle and try to solve this problem?

Thank you
Andrew

This is a great idea but is never going to work, because there is simply no way to stop people older than 13 accessing it. There's a reason that social media has an age limit, and it's because policing it is impossible. Your best bet is to allow your children an email that you monitor, or help them set up Zoom or Hangout calls with their friends on a regular basis. Anything else is asking for trouble.

I don't think the BBC app Own it has an age limit.

@SomeoneElseEntirelyNow, agree it's very difficult to prevent somebody over 13 accessing, however I believe it may be a better approach to ensure parents are an inclusive part in allowing their child(ren) to interact and connect with other users (i.e. accept friend requests). Having a sign-up process which comes with additional barriers for protection and involves parents may act as a strong deterrent and will help protect younger children. After all, we (as parents) are ultimately responsible...

@Abbccc Thanks, will check it out properly. Is this a social platform or more geared towards educating children on how to use the internet?

my children connect with existing school friends online (zoom / google hangouts etc). they don't need to make new friends and I would not trust any website that let them connect to people that I don't know in real life.

I've only seen the advert for it, looks like Whatsapp, not an educational resource.

@parietal thank you! I fully agree and that is why I would look at putting parents in charge of accepting friend requests etc. We use Zoom here at home for our kids too. The issue I've noticed is that 1) they either shout over each other and it's chaos, 2) they vary in their level of engagement, 3) it is limited to just talking and 4) it requires the use of mum or dad's device. I was thinking a platform where they can message friends (actual real world friends) share photos, videos etc between themselves would add an extra level of engagement.

If you are worried about dangers of mainstream platforms .I'd stay away from zoom!
How about email?

@Abbccc I know Zoom was targeted by hackers who were effectively brute forcing dial in numbers in the hope they hit a call - to be fair, the Zoom CEO publicly apologised for this oversight. They've now put in place passwords as a default setting (which they were not previously). I've used Zoom for work before and always set passwords so for me, this was no difference. I (or my wife) also tend to always be present when they use it too. Email has too much of a time lag and ends up with emails crossing path 'in flight', so I would not recommend this for children in a chat setting, but for structured communication it's great.

FB messenger kids does basically what you're asking OP. The kids can set up groups.