1. Skip to navigation
  2. Skip to content
  3. Skip to sidebar

Topics:

Mini messengers

How young is too young for kids to instant-message?

By
//
Originally published in Today's Parent October 2006

At six, my daughter became an instant messaging addict. “Can I just check who’s online?” she’d ask every 10 minutes, hoping to find her little boyfriend tapping away inside the webcam video in the corner of our computer screen.

Between Rachel and her eight-year-old brother, Seth, our computer now houses an online community of over 40 kids. At all times of day, someone is waiting to chat, and if I’m not standing like a security guard behind my babes, I have no idea what conversations are taking place. While it’s mostly innocent fun, one of my kids’ IM buddies is on there for hours straight; another has a filthy mouth.

Instant messaging, or IMing as it’s known in households across the world, starts younger than you’d think. A 2003 report by the US Corporation for Public Broadcasting notes preschoolers are the fastest-growing group of Internet users. According to Canadian researcher Reactorz, the age when kids start to IM is dropping to the just-past-literacy threshold. The bottom line: Any child who can read or write can IM, and little ones catch on fast as they watch older siblings rush to socialize by computer.

But should parents be concerned? Sure we want to encourage our children’s discovery of the online universe, yet even tweens — who are clearly better equipped than preschoolers to navigate the dangers of the Internet — can fall prey to the Web’s seedy side. So the question is: Are kids under eight simply too young to IM?

Samantha Wilson, founder of Kidproof Canada and author of Safe Kids, Safe Families, says yes. “Youngsters lack the critical thinking skills to distinguish real from false content and should never instant-message without strict supervision.” Alyson Schäfer, a Toronto parenting coach, agrees, but adds that too much supervision makes kids feel we don’t trust them. Still, parents of the under-eight crowd must set clear ground rules.

Unlike chat rooms or message boards, where your child is essentially out in the Web world alone, IMing occurs in a more controlled environment where you build a buddy list and chat with only those members. But many kids, eager to collect names, share their lists and start receiving messages from people they don’t know. Also, constant IMing can lead to other problems, like Internet addiction (which keeps kids staring at the screen even on a sunny day) and cyberbullying.

Subscribe to Today's Parent for just $14.95* That's only $1.25 an issue!

May We Also Suggest...

What do you think?