Curiosity beats age bar on social web

LUDHIANA: The way social networking has become a trend is quite similar to how mobile phone sales picked up in the Indian market a decade ago. With over a billion active users across the world, Facebook leads the way social networking has been progressing. But, its policy of not permitting a user below 13 years of age to have an account is being ignored by many children in the city.With a slight maneuvering in birth year, children create an account and satiate their curiosity about social networking.
Sameer Gupta, who will turn 13 on June 28 this year, already has an account for past one year on Facebook. "Everybody in my family and friends had a Facebook account," he justifies.
"Everybody in my family and friends had a Facebook account," he justifies. I did not have the patience to wait till my 13th birthday. So, I just entered my year of birth an year older from the actual one," he says.
With every youngster owning a multimedia phone or an iPhone "logging-in" social media accounts has become really easy providing easy access to many youngsters. According to the terms and policies of the website, if an underage user is found using the account, the matter can be reported to Facebook, as the firm holds the complete authority to permanently delete the account of an underage user. Nikki Mehra, 12, may be underage according to FB norms but she owns not one but two accounts on the site. "I am not allowed to use internet at home as my mother is strict about using networking sites. I use my phone to access both my accounts during night when parents are
sleeping."
Psychologist B P Mishra believes the websites are not free of obscene and other content that requires parental advisory and hence, the parents should keep an eye over their kids when they are logging in social networking sites.