I have heard the sentence “Children under thirteen should not be allowed on Social Media” a lot. The truth is some people think it’s true and some dont. You see there is not a exact age to start being on social media. But it’s definitely not okay to be giving your child it at 4 years old. I said there is not a exact age to giving a child social media. Because different apps have different age ratings. Lets say for a example TikTok used to be +15 which was fine. Now there are alot of users so they changed it to 12+. TikTok requires that users be at least 13 years old to use the full TikTok experience, although there is a way for younger kids to access the app.
Is TikTok safe for children under 12 year olds?
Overall, TikTok’s community is toxic and is not safe for children. Many people follow users just to make fun of them and their videos (like sharing them on Instagram and calling them flops) which is cyber bullying. Another thing that is not safe for a 10 year old is that there is swearing. You see there are adults also using the app and some of the videos include lip syncing which can have curse words. Another reason TikTok is bad for younger children is that there are some inapropiate dances done by popular users. Those dances are on like a home screen thing called ‘for you page’ basically whatever you like will keep coming up when you scroll. Last reason tiktok is bad for children is that this app is very addictive. I know this from my personal experience and once you do get addicted especially at a young age it is hard to get out of it.
What apps are safe for children and which ones not?
One of the apps I find safe for children younger than me so like children under 12 is Youtube kids. Youtube kids is basically like Youtube but way safer. It delete’s all inapropiate video’s and you can pick a age group for how old your child is. I used to have it when I was younger. The only thing I find annoying is that you cant record videos but I guess that’s safer for the children.
An app I find very unsafe for a child under my age is Snapchat. Snapchat is a very common and popular app with my age and now younger. It is unsafe because children at around 5 years old might not know to not friend random people. They also might not know what to do when someone adds them. And we cant expect them to know everything about social media. What we would have to expect though is not to give your child social medias at such a young age.
A other good one is Pinterst , in my opinion Pinterest is a un-harmful app. I think its very helpful for some creative ideas for art, your room and many more and I do not see why this could be harmful for children.
And lastly Minecraft.
I think Minecraft is a great game. Yes I know it is a video game but it teaches you what things come from. For a example you need wheat to make bread in Minecraft and makes you more creative by building. Minecraft is pretty much about getting resources and building. I play Minecraft and I have for the last 4 years and I personally dont think it can be harmful in anyway. The only thing I think can be harmful is servers. I think that because some servers have that when you curse it comes up in chat instead of not showing it or hashtaging it. The game is pretty much based on the stone age time and how people used to live. So I think its very educational.
