In Spain, the legal age to create a profile on a social network is 14 years, however there are many children under that age with active profiles on networks, mainly on sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Facebook.
One of the main reasons why children should not use social networks is precisely privacy. Children do not have a complete understanding about the lack of privacy to which they are exposed in social networks. To help them become aware of this, UNICEF Spain has just launched the campaign #NoSeasEstrella, a great initiative aimed at children and young people that your children should see.
"You are not as anonymous as you think"
Under the motto "Some children dream of becoming stars. But what if they already were and didn't know it?", the campaign, very successful from my point of view, hit the spot.
They summon nine anonymous children and teenagers to an unexpected press conference in which they are the stars. At first they feel important and flattered, but then they realize that the improvised journalists start asking them too personal questions. They feel intimidated.
They show them photos that they have published in their profiles or ask them to sing or dance, as they have done on the networks. As expected, everyone cuts. They are ashamed.
It is not more than a reflection of what happens in social networks. Every day, 175,000 children discover the Internet exposing themselves to serious risks such as harassment, grooming, sexting, phishing, data theft and other internet-related crimes.
Minors are not aware that by posting images, videos, stories in their public profiles open your life not only to their contacts, but also to many people that they don't even know.
We parents have not just been aware of the scope of this phenomenon and the risks to which they are exposed, because we are learning along with them in this of networks, or even behind.
Therefore, it is important that we take the necessary measures to protect our children on the Internet, including avoiding or delaying the use of social networks as much as possible (until they have the appropriate maturity), and the basics: keeping profiles private, not Accept requests from strangers, take care of the photos that are shared and not give personal information (travel, school, hobbies, etc).
I'm going to show my daughters the campaign, and I encourage you to do it with yours, so that they are aware of what they are exposed when creating a profile in a social network.
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