While many find social media as an overwhelming opportunity to prove their metal to the internet realm, there are certain risks and dangers associated with this medium of communication and advertisement. There are a number of different social media platforms, which are being used in order to help people prove their online presence and connect with their family members living in different parts of the world.
However, these portals have taken into consideration that the content being posted by people may be explicit as well, and not suitable for people of all age groups. This is when the age restrictions play a helpful hand in keeping our children safe from the social media risks. Age restrictions have been devised by each social media according to the content which is being posted. Most of the portals have different age restriction policies, however, the reasons behind these restrictions remain the same for all the social media platforms we know off.
Minimum Social Media Age Limits on Different Platforms:
For social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr and Secret have set their minimum age limit to 13, in order to make sure that children under this age limit do not access these portals. The social media channel who has set its minimum age limit to 14 is LinkedIn.
As for the list of portals who have set their minimum age limit to 16, 17 and 18 are Whatsapp, Vine, Tinder, and Path. Apart from these platforms, there are platforms who have set their minimum age requirement from 13 to 18, however, they ask for parents permission certification, before letting children access their content. Such platforms include Kik, WeChat, YouTube, Flickr, Keek, and Foursquare.
Reasons For Age Limits:
1. Personal Information at Risk:
Most children may not know but as soon as they provide their personal information on an unsecured social media platform, their information as well as their parents are at stake.
2. Immature Decisions:
Children tend to make a careless mistake when interacting with strangers over such platforms. The main reason behind this is that although the children might be well-aware of how to use the 21st Century gadgets, their brains might not have developed as much as they should have. This can result in a number of casual decisions.
3. Online Frauds:
One of the biggest reason behind social media platforms setting age restrictions for their portals is the increasing rate of online frauds. Children may purchase items over these social media platforms – that too from illegitimate sources; causing their parent’s financial information to be at continuous risk and danger.
Tech-savvy children have become increasingly interested in spending most of their time managing their social media accounts, and getting themselves aware of all the new gadgets and technologies being introduced in the market. However, social media platforms have devised certain social media age limits for all their users, and have provided legit reasons in order to support their decisions!
