What age should my children be allowed on Social Media?

[MotherHen20000000]

Not sure if anyone has seen what Matthew McConaughey has said regarding waiting till his children are 15 to start on social media.

Do we think this is right and what age would you let your children start, I can't decide myself?

Attached a poll link because I am interested to see if people agree with Matthew McConaughey or not.

https://strawpoll.com/XOgONDaGrn3

Never. Young people need scouting, boredom, reading, travelling, finding themselves. Not bloody social media. There is a reason all the big social media CEOs never let their kids near it.

I have three teens and a 10 year old.

They have WhatsApp and signal, but nothing else. They aren't interested, in all honesty.

We have explained why they will not have TikTok or Snapchat. YouTube is very limited. If they want to look on instagram/YouTube then they use my phone, but they don't ask often (less than monthly). And we have their phones set up so that any apps require our permission, plus daily time limits. (And we can see everything that they have looked at.)

I asked if they feel left out, and they said no. Whilst they are in the minority, by not having these apps, they are not the only ones.

My family haven't allowed the kids to have mobiles til they are 16 and it has done so much good for them. Mine are too little right now but I hope I can do the same!

What age are your kids?
At some point you'll have to let them make their own choices.

How do they manage socially out and about with no phones?
In the old days there were phone boxes, etc. but now you would have an uncontactable 14/15 year olds out late at night with no way to let you know if something went wrong.
I'm not a fan of social media for young people but I feel that phones are a necessary part of secondary school life.

Why would 14/15 year olds be out late?

Clubs (scouts, other activities), parties, cinema, coming back later after school.
I don't necessarily mean 2 am, but 8 pm on a dark evening perhaps.

Meeting friends, playing sports, hanging out.

I think 16 is about right.

SM has made life much more shit for young people.

I think it might be a cultural difference actually. I am Pakistani so we have extended family's and generally the kids just go out to their cousins houses. If they do go out late (which is rare) they will be with their older cousins who have phones.

Most people on here wouldn't have grown up with phones at young ages and we all managed fine. My parents just set start and end times with me and it worked out.

They can do all of this too!… When I was a teen I did all of those things , plus had my head constantly in some crappy teen mag.

I will hold off as long as possible. Our local comp had a Y7 WhatsApp group go horrifically wrong in week 2 of this term - police and safeguarding involved, the works. It’s not worth it.

My secondary kids have it. They’re still alive. I’m another one that navigates the whole world with them. That includes online too.

One of ours has repeatedly shown that he can't be trusted with social media, or perhaps even the internet as a whole. Graphic visual sexting via snapchat; searching for "chat with strangers" apps; looking at porn on reddit... Apparently he "forgot" that he's not allowed to connect with fucking strangers 😒

We've had plenty of "robust conversations" about all sorts. They fall on deaf ears with a 15 year old who's seemingly obsessed with his own penis. As he approaches 16 I'm somewhat reaching the end of my rope.

The online child is a completely different person to the one we know. It's sad and depressing and I don't really know what to do about it.

So, my answer is for as long as possible. But unless you severely lock them down then they'll find a way to access dodge, if they're inclined to. We have the adult filters on via the mobile network, the home router set to block stuff. I guess with VPNs and incognito mode they can always find a workaround.

I'm glad to see we aren't the only ones who attempt to have some sort of restrictions in place. We do seem to be the minority.

Also in my family there is usually some distant adult supervision. So if there is a party/outing/club, 3-4 of the mum's would meet close by for a coffee let's say. They would also pick up and drop off all the kids so that's probably why it worked without phones. Never thought about it properly though.

It can be so damaging to children.

I absolutely agree with PP that i will be waiting until as late as possible. Adulthood ideally

Why won't you let them have it? Were you not allowed out of the house until you were 18?

My son is 14. He has had a phone since end of year 6 but only recently TikTok/Snapchat etc.

His entire social life is conducted on there. He spends a lot of time out with his mates and all meet-ups are arranged online.

He has kept it touch with lots of people who didn't go to the same secondary school, has communities of friends to chat about football etc.

Yes there is inappropriate content - but that's what parenting is for. We have Frank discussions about porn, conspiracy theories, critical thinking etc.

You can keep them off social media all you like, but they'll be watching Andrew Tate on YouTube and seeing porn on the bus before you know it.

It's complacent to think just saying no will solve all the world's ills.

My 14 year old is out late in the summer. We live in a village and he has lots of friends around and about. They hang out in each others houses.

I'm happy with that because I can contact him and see where he is on Snapchat.

I also let him go on the train shopping with his mates to a big city because I knew we could get hold of each other if necessary and I can track his spending and whereabouts.

He has a lot more freedom to navigate the world than he would if I didn't let him have those things.