Every parent has to decide from what age they allow their children to create profiles on social media. This often leads to long discussions between parents since there is not a clear guideline to when it would be appropriate to expose their children to social media.
Especially in a pandemic, children often spend a large part of their day unsupervised on social media. During the that time they are tracked, exposed to toxic content and their mental health might be impacted. Especially the mental health aspect has been topic of recent debate. Looking at Instagram for example, the app is designed to show perfect pictures. This regularly leads to lowering of teen girl’s self-esteem and in bad cases even mental health problems.
Facebook has now claimed to try to tackle these issues by creating a kid’s version of Instagram. In short, the app would be designed for kids under 13 and incorporate more feedback from parents and policymakers, which according to Facebook would improve the safeguarding of children on Instagram. Facebook claims that creating a digital space where parents are more able to monitor their children behaviour is more effective than banning then from social media altogether.
Even though everyone would agree that safeguarding children more online is a good thing, the idea of a kid’s version of Instagram has received quite some criticism saying it is profit driven instead of a genuine regard for children wellbeing.
Parents and policymakers claim that young children would be more triggered to join a social media platform which are designed to be addictive. Next to that, they fear that their children would be tracked more specifically and even though not all the data can be used now, it will be stored for the future.
What do you think, is a kid’s Instagram a good idea or is another solution more suitable?
