By JL Watkins, The GalTime Guy
Recently I had a conversation with one of the parents at my daughter's preschool, both of us chatting about how we're very "connected" people. His three year-old uses a Mac mini while mine is a whiz with her Apple iTouch. Yet after checking out my daughter's blog he admitted, "You're much more dedicated than I am." I took it as a badge of honor, since my kid's website is completely decked out. Though later I wondered, briefly, if maybe we were going too far.
How early is too early for children to enter the social media world?
My wife recalled a conversation she had last year with a colleague, in which she asked if him if he'd be posting any photos of his newborn baby online. The man then announced everyone at work that his family won't be posting anything about their daughter on the web "until she's an adult and decides if she wants to be on the Internet". I would contend by the time his kid is all grown up, there won't be a decision to make. Everything is going up onto "the cloud". It seems inevitable, and dreadfully hard to resist.
But, to each his own, right?
It seems like most people are uploading their children and an astounding rate. In a recent study conducted by the Internet security firm AVG, the researchers found that worldwide, 81 percent of children have some sort of presence online - mainly through uploaded photos. In this country the actual percentage is much higher, with 92 percent of our nation's kids having their faces and digital spaces on the web. In a third of those scenarios, the children are online before they're even born, with their parents proudly posting images of their prenatal ultrasound scans.
For us it was an easy decision to put Eliza online, mainly because we live across the country from all our relatives and having a single place to go for "Eliza updates" was crucial. Also, we have an open-adoption, so having lots of photos and cute stories online has been a real comfort to the birthmother and our daughter's extended family. We have her a little website, which also has an embedded Twitter feed of all the funny things our daughter says each day. Everything we post is mostly through our iPhones or brief skirmishes on the Internet.
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There has to be some limitations.
It might seem like a lot, but we do have limits. We don't post bathtub (or similar) photos anywhere. She doesn't have any 'friends' on Twitter that aren't family or a close friend. We block anyone we don't know from following her on Twitter. And she doesn't have a Facebook account, but that's more because we don't want the hassle of maintaining it.
I do think it's annoying when really little kids have Facebook accounts and I see their little faces popping up in the "people you might know" tab. I have a friend who created an account for her two year-old, rather than make one for herself. But she uses it much like we do with our blog, rather than pretending to be her kid. It makes sense, considering so many people use Facebook as in lieu of having set up and maintain a web page. On the other extreme, I've known people who have created shell Facebook accounts for her children, mainly using the accounts to score themselves extra credits on Zynga games like YoVille and Farmville. Now, that seems rather exploitative to me. It's also creepy to occasionally notice one of the kids 'liking' other people's status updates.
Even this week, First Lady, Michelle Obama sounded-off on the issue stating she's, "not a big fan of young kids having Facebook, " and reminding everyone that Facebook accounts are intended for people ages 13 and up.
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Staying under the watchful eye of Mom & Dad.
My daughter loves looking at the photos and videos on her site, and surfing to similar little blogs of our friends and relatives. Right now, it's innocent sharing insulated by the fact that she doesn't quite have the Internet figured out. I guess in the end it all comes down to personal taste and limitations, each parent making the decisions they think are best. All along the way, parents will need to be mindful of their online privacy settings and be extra vigilant in extended presence of 'stranger danger'. As parents we also need to teach our kids to grow up using the Golden Rule both in the online and offline world, and to monitor and mentor all their Internet activities.
My other big concern at this point is wondering if I'll be able to maintain the momentum of blogging until she's finally at an age where she can responsibly takeover the publishing duties.
Flickr photo courtesy of Eirikso (creative commons license)
OK, so what do you think...should kids be uploaded, chatted about, exposed to the Internet early? How young is too young? Do you place limits on what's 'out there' about your kids?
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