Would you allow your eleven year old to have an account on myspace? I ask because my sister is allowing my niece to have one and I just feel she is way to young for this.

Personally, I wouldn't. I don't agree that publishing personal information on the net can ever be a good thing for children.

What benefit does your sister perceive in this? I wonder that I am out of touch as these social networking sites are such a big thing now.

I think whether or not she permits her to have the account, she will. These kids find very creative ways of doing what they want. I hope she intends to monitor the account.

She wants one because some of her friends have one. Honestly though I don't see how an 11 year old is going to have one if the parents say no. I can see this happening when they get a little older but at eleven?

Originally Posted by tater03

Would you allow your eleven year old to have an account on myspace? I ask because my sister is allowing my niece to have one and I just feel she is way to young for this.

I recently read the TOS for MySpace because one of our business sites is there. If I'm not mistaken, this is moot because I'm pretty sure I saw that you need to be 14 to even have an account there. So it sounds as if your niece is fibbing to get an account... is that right? Or is there some other version of it that allows those under 14 an account?

That aside, to answer your question, I would certainly not allow it, no. I wouldn't allow lying about age but not an account there even if she *was* 14. It's a good resource for business and adults but not kids.

I personally wouldn't allow my child to have a Myspace at 11 years old. At 14, since it's in the terms of service of Myspace, I might allow it, but you can bet I'd be keeping a close eye on that page.

It makes me worried since myspace has been having to get ride of peofiles before. You never know who is out there. I am an adult and I don't have a myspace page - I have facebook. When I first signed up for facebook it was cool (even for me) to find more people to add as friends then my other friends had. I can't imagine an 11 year old being able to judge who to accept and not.

I was unaware that you had to be 14 years old. I will have to see what she says when I ask her about this. Curious to see?

Originally Posted by tater03

I was unaware that you had to be 14 years old. I will have to see what she says when I ask her about this. Curious to see?

I for one am curious, yes. I don't know if they have accomodations for younger kids than 14 or not, but I kind of doubt it.

I think that we have to keep in mind that some kids would find a way to set up a page even if they're forbidden to have one, by using a friend's computer or maybe one at a library or cyber cafe. I'm not familiar with the security features of those places.

I think that everybody should be careful about what info they put on the net.

And if most of her friends have a page, there will definitely be peer pressure for her to have one. I think allowing her to have a page and monitoring it would probably be better than forbidding her to have one.