kids today

59 Percent of Tiny Children Use Social Media

A new study from the safety advisory site Knowthenet finds that 59 percent of kids join social networks before the age of 10. Kidlets: The only consistent thing about them, through all of history, is that they grow up too fast.

Yes, with their their chubby cheeks and their runny noses, they’re joining Facebook in hordes, setting up their very first social-media profiles. It’s the new rite of passage, isn’t it? Baby’s first profile picture. Baby’s first status update. Baby’s first ironic use of the “Like” button. Baby’s first change-in-relationship-status. Baby’s first subtweet.

Opinium, which conducted the survey, included reports from over 1,000 parents of kids ages 8 to 16, and 1,000 kids ages 8 to 16. They found that most of these kids (52 percent) signed up for Facebook (despite the posted age restrictions). Other popular social-media sites included WhatsApp (40 percent), BBM (24 percent), and Snapchat (11 percent).

The poll also found that 21 percent of kids posted negative comments starting at age 11, a good sign that they are not happy-nonsense-robot kids. Opinium reported that 26 percent “hijacked” another kid’s profile without permission. No word on how many of these hijackings resulted in status updates reading: “I’M POOPING RIGHT NOW HAHAHAH!”

59 Percent of Tiny Children Use Social Media