In the Surrey UK, a 'mum' has been feeling left out when she off everyday working in her recruitment job, with a daily round trip of 90 miles. She misses the talks she would have with other moms at school gates to plan play dates and whatnot. And in general, she feels that she is not as much a part of her children's lives as she would like to be.
"I saw other mums chatting and it bothered me that I wasn't building those relationships. I wished there was a website for parents that re-creates that school-gate community, a site you can log on to in your own time and catch up with other parents from the school. If I felt like this, I reali[z]ed there must be lots of other mums feeling the same way." Said mother Esther Guy.
So she decided to launch her own website, and she thought she may even get to quit her job if the site takes off, that way she'll be able to do what she originally wanted to do, and still run the website.
Then a though came to her mind, "Let's do it for the kids as well," she exclaimed, "There are loads of primary-school-aged kids using Facebook-even though they're underage. I thought my site could be a way of introducing children safely to the grown up world of social networking. If they're on a space their parents us, they can be supervised. Children accept their real friends - their classmates - as buddies and chat to them online."
So her website ( www.schooltogethernow.com ) went live last month, and even though the official launch is not until January, it's receiving more that 1,000 hits a day from across the UK. 57% of registered members are children ranging from ages 7-11.
Parents are exchanging school updates and information, which children are debating over High School Musical over Hannah Montana. Here's an idea of the kids networking conversations:
"I AM going to the disco, ARE YOU?" asks Holly, adding 20 smiley faces and 8 other emoticons. No one answered Holly's question, but Allison wrote "Your smilies are cool."
I can't help myself but to laugh at all of this. Is our society becoming so technologically advanced that even children who can barely spell their own name are becoming involved in today's 'fad' of social networking? It seems ridiculous to me that children would be getting involved, because in my opinion, if such a tool such as social networking is introduced to children at such a young age, I don't think they will be able to determine it from reality. They may just get confused when they see their friends at pre-school compared to when they see them on the Internet.
Also, children should live out their childhood, and take every advantage of his/her youth, not technology. Introducing such tools created for adults will just expose them to a world they are not ready for. It will just influence kids to act older and 'cool' and forget their child-like ways. Social Networking has an age limit on it for a reason.
7 comments:
I find this to be so interesting and cute. There should be a network just for kids, where they don't have to lie about their age or etc. I also find it cool that it came from a mom and she wants her own social networking site.
I guess this is the only way that parents can connect with their kids these days. The age of the internet, and that of convenience, is leading to kids using these kinds of sites at a younger and younger age. I personally don't agree with it because it doesn't reinforce honing social skills, but rather encourages convenience when it comes to friends, and even making new friends. Maybe I'm just nostalgic.
I agree with you Neall, this may be cute and all, and convenient for parents, but I don't help kids in their growth for social skills either. Children may become too shy to socialize in reality, and they may even become glued to their computers instead of doing normal child-like activities.
This is a good way for parents to connect with their children. I agree with what was said above, children may be becoming attached to the internet at a very young age. I dont think a facebook for kids should be out anytime soon.
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