Wednesday 16 November 2011

Should under 13s use Facebook for education??

The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg  has said that he wants to let children under 13 use it!!!

There are age limits on these SNS from the Chirldren's Online Privacy Protection Act, even though it is estimated that seven and a half million of Facebook's 600 million users are under 13.

Mr. Zuckerberg wants to change the law because of the educational benefits of the site....but what about the risks?? Zuckerberg says that:

"My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age. Because of the [legal] restrictions we haven't even begun this learning process."

You can't deny that he is absolutly correct about education, there are numerous studies that are showing that the internet and SNS do have educational benefit, a University found that '

'94 percent used the Internet, 82 percent go online at home and 77 percent had a profile on a social networking site. When asked what they learn from using social networking sites, the students listed technology skills as the top lesson, followed by creativity, being open to new or diverse views and communication skills.'

But these are university students, would SNS be of benefit to children of such a young age?

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