7.5 million Facebook users are under 13: study
5/10/2011
WASHINGTON — Some
7.5 million of the 20 million minors who used Facebook in the past year were younger than 13, and a million of them were bullied, harassed or threatened on the site, says a study released Tuesday.
Even more troubling,
more than five million Facebook users were 10 years old or younger, and they were allowed to use Facebook largely
without parental supervision leaving them vulnerable to threats ranging from malware to sexual predators, the State of the Net survey by Consumer Reports found.
Facebook's terms of service require users to be at least 13 years old but many children, or their parents, get around that rule by giving a false birth date when they sign up for the social networking site.
Parents of kids 10 and younger who use Facebook "seem to be largely unconcerned" by their children's use of the site, possibly because they think a young child is less vulnerable to Internet risks, the study says.
But while a 10-year-old might not download pornography on the Internet, he or she does "need protection from other hazards that might lurk on the Internet, such as links that infect their computer with malware and invitations from strangers, not to mention bullies," the study says.
More than five million US households have been exposed in the past year to "some type of abuse" via Facebook, including virus infections, identity theft and bullying, says the study, for which 2,089 US households were interviewed earlier this year.
Consumer Reports urged parents to delete their pre-teens' Facebook accounts -- or ask Facebook to do so by using the site's "report an underage child" form -- and to monitor teenage kids' accounts by friending them or keeping an eye on their activity via siblings' or friends' Facebook pages.
It also called on Facebook to "beef up its screening to drastically reduce the number of underage members."
Facebook was not immediately available for comment.
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Docs warn about Facebook use and teen depression
03/28/2011
CHICAGO, Illinois — Add
"Facebook depression" to potential harms linked with social media, an influential doctors' group warns, referring to a condition it says may affect troubled teens who obsess over the online site.
Researchers disagree on whether it's simply an extension of depression some kids feel in other circumstances, or a distinct condition linked with using the online site.
But there are unique aspects of Facebook that can make it a particularly
tough social landscape to navigate for kids already dealing with poor self-esteem, said Dr. Gwenn O'Keeffe, a Boston-area pediatrician and lead author of new American Academy of Pediatrics social media guidelines.
With in-your-face friends' tallies, status updates and photos of happy-looking people having great times, Facebook pages
can make some kids feel even worse if they think they don't measure up.
It can be more painful than sitting alone in a crowded school cafeteria or other real-life encounters that can make kids feel down, O'Keeffe said, because
Facebook provides a skewed view of what's really going on. Online, there's no way to see facial expressions or read body language that provide context.
The guidelines urge pediatricians to encourage parents to talk with their kids about online use and to
be aware of Facebook depression, cyberbullying, sexting and other online risks. They were published online Monday in Pediatrics.
Abby Abolt, 16, a Chicago high school sophomore and frequent Facebook user, says the site has never made her feel depressed, but that she can understand how it might affect some kids.
"If you really didn't have that many friends and weren't really doing much with your life, and saw other peoples' status updates and pictures and what they were doing with friends, I could see how that would make them upset," she said.
"
It's like a big popularity contest — who can get the most friend requests or get the most pictures tagged," she said.
Also, it's common among some teens to post snotty or judgmental messages on the Facebook walls of people they don't like, said Gaby Navarro, 18, a senior from Grayslake, Illinois. It's happened to her friends, and she said she could imagine how that could make some teens feel depressed.
"Parents should definitely know" about these practices," Navarro said. "It's good to raise awareness about it."
The academy guidelines note that
online harassment "can cause profound psychosocial outcomes," including suicide. The widely publicized suicide of a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl last year occurred after she'd been bullied and harassed, in person and on Facebook.
"Facebook is where all the teens are hanging out now. It's their corner store," O'Keeffe said...
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Mom on Facebook sentenced in son's drowning death
4/15/2011
GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — A northern Colorado woman who was
playing a game on Facebook while her 13-month-old baby drowned in a bathtub was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.
Shannon Johnson, 34, of Fort Lupton, cried as District Judge Thomas Quammen told her he didn't think she was a bad person or that she killed her son on purpose, the Greeley Tribune reported. But, he added, that doesn't mean her action wasn't criminal.
"You left this little boy in a bathtub so you could entertain yourself on the computer by playing games," Quammen said. "And you left that 13-month-old human being, little Joseph, incredibly for those reasons."
Johnson pleaded guilty in March to negligently causing the death of her child. The charge carried a sentencing range of four to 12 years, but it also left open the possibility of alternative sentencing, which means she might have avoided spending time behind bars. Authorities rejected that option, saying they didn't want to play down the seriousness of her crime.
According to court documents,
Johnson put her son in the tub for his bath a little after 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 20. She then left him unsupervised as she went to another room to share videos, check status updates and play Café World on Facebook.
When she returned to the bathroom, she found Joseph sideways and face-down in the water.
Johnson called 911 to say Joseph wasn't breathing. Paramedics were able to revive the toddler but he was pronounced dead at a Denver hospital.
According to the affidavit, Johnson told police the boy "wanted to be left alone" and was a very "independent baby." She also told police she knew what it was like to be told "no," and she did not want her baby to be told "no." The affidavit says she also did not want him to be known as a "mama's boy."
Johnson told police she gave the boy a bath every day — sometimes twice a day. She said that on the day Joseph died, the water level might have been higher than usual.
Johnson told police
she had been leaving Joseph in the bathtub alone for weeks.
Johnson also told authorities that
her son had a seizure at his grandmother's house a month earlier and had been given anti-seizure medication in case it happened again. Doctors didn't diagnose the cause of the seizure and there were no other occurrences, Johnson said.
The investigation into the boy's death was delayed while investigators waited for the final autopsy report. That report came back Jan. 3. It said
the baby died of anoxic brain injury, cardiac arrest and drowning, according to the arrest affidavit. Johnson was arrested days later.
She was also sentenced to five years of mandatory parole following her incarceration.
Weld County Undersheriff Margie Martinez told KMGH-TV in Denver that
Johnson's mother said she had warned her daughter of the danger of leaving the toddler unattended in water just days before he drowned.
"She told her she wouldn't do it anymore," Martinez said.
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