Last week a social media platform we all love and know announced the launch of Messenger Kids: ‘a standalone app that lets kids communicate with their family and friends.’
You have to be 13 years old to have an account on this platform, but with Messenger Kids, younger children can sign up: of course, only after both parents have signed off on it. New friend requests must be approved by parents, messages cannot be deleted from the app and kids can block any person they don’t want to talk to, and report inappropriate messages. It sounds great right?
I’ll share what happened to me last year. My older son likes to take photographs of insects on my smartphone. He was amassing a fairly large collection of images of bugs, beetles and butterflies, and it was seriously messing up my phone storage space. So I thought, hey why not create an account on a popular image sharing app for him where himself can share his pictures?
It was so easy. Create an account. Upload images. Click share. All his interactions with it were monitored by me. But then, he started taking pictures to specifically share on his account. He would get upset when a picture didn’t get enough likes: “But this is so good! Why doesn’t anyone like it?” Sound familiar?
I had to talk to him about how he took photos for himself, not for other people. How it didn’t matter if people ‘liked’ his pictures or not. We then put some rules in place on how we would use the account (once every few weeks and in my presence). In hindsight, I should have just created an online folder for him and shared the link with friends and family who wouldn’t mind being bombarded with pictures of a few spiders and grasshoppers.
This year we have read a number of alarming articles on what extended time on social media does to young minds. The Atlantic wrote about mental illness and depression in adolescents and it’s links to social media. There was the story about how algorithms on video sharing sites are targeting children (someone needs to write about what watching Spiderman swing around town to the tune of ‘Have you seen the muffin man?’ on loop does to the adult brain.) Do kids really need a messenger app?
I am constantly asked by my nine-year-old when he will get a phone. I tell him when he can afford to buy one for himself. But younger and younger children across the world have a phone or tablet for themselves. A friend tells me how in her son’s fifth grade class in Mumbai every child (EVERY CHILD) has an expensive smart phone. WHY?
While writing this column I had to remove my phone’s presence from my presence, as the urge to swipe and tap is overpowering at times. If I can’t control my urge to be on social media, then what chance do our kids have?
Also, at the risk of sounding like an old fuddyduddy, remember when we wrote messages on chits of paper and passed them to each other in class? We drew our own emojis and doodles and it was fun. Kids don’t need an app to message their friends.
Menaka Raman
Twitter@menakaraman
The writer’s philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me