People may argue that it is not Facebook's fault, as they made it clear in their "Terms of Use" that users must be at least thirteen years old.
This Site is intended solely for users who are thirteen (13) years of age or older, and users of the Site under 18 who are currently in high school or college. Any registration by, use of or access to the Site by anyone under 13, or by anyone who is under 18 and not in high school or college, is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of these Terms of Use.But to tell you the truth, no one ever reads those terms of use stuff. And even if they did, do you think it is appropriate for a thirteen years old child to deal with an application like this one.
As you can see, today's technologist aren't stoppable, and if they are now reshaping our present, they are also reshaping the future of our children. Parents now prefer to give their children mobile phones in order to keep an eye on them and know where they are, but it is a double-edged weapon. As on the other hand, mobile phones are giving children a private communication channel with the outside world. It's normal now to see some kids sharing x-rated clips on their mobile phones, or having an intimate conversation with the girl next door.
When we were teens, pornography was so dear and not easy to acquire, but now in the internet age it is few clicks far from today's teens, and children as well.
I think it is really risky for children to be exposed to such stuff in such young age.
"From birth, humans have instinctual sexual appetites (libido) which unfold in a series of stages. Each stage is characterized by the erogenous zone that is the source of the libidinal drive during that stage. These stages are, in order: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Freud believed that if, during any stage, the child experienced anxiety in relation to that drive, that themes related to this stage would persist into adulthood as neurosis", Sigmund Freud, Psychosexual development.Terms like "Girlfriend" and "Boyfriend", weren't very common in our society few years ago. I cannot recall seeing any of my classmates having a girlfriend. Later on, it started to be normal to see couples in classrooms, and now I think it is even common in primary schools. In today's world the internet and satellite channels are affecting people everywhere, and children here in Egypt who watch western sitcoms like Friends, Coupling, etc, and chat with people across the ocean who have girlfriends are influenced by their culture, and the effect is spreading more along with the spread of new means of communication. In the western world, it is common for people to have premarital sex, and we have to expect this to being exported to our society soon, unless it is already here. I am not sure how the future here will look like, but I am sure that we are now living in a hybrid society. We are now in the middle of a transitional state, where only the cons of each society are available.
I am now stating this to say that the internet is evil, I am against brute-force actions, and against those who suggest that governments shall control the internet. Let's agree that new technologies are not stoppable, and those who are willing to stop or ban it are in fact harming their own selves. I think what we need here is to give parents more control, they need to be educated more in order to know how to deal with their children in such era as well as to know how to deal with those new technologies. They also need to have more tools to help them monitor and control their children activities. Also sites like facebook have to be smarter, because such dumb policies that either allow or deny people based on their age will encourage more kids to lie about their age. They were supposed to allow those children to create an account there regardless of their age, because we cannot deny how appealing it is to them, but on the other hand they were supposed to have some application rating mechanism in order to keep those rated applications our of the reach of those children.
