What’s an appropriate age to allow a child access to the internet?
With internet privacy being breached on a daily basis, accounts hacked and fake profiles popping up with the regularity of colds and flu in winter, it’s no wonder taking precautions is second to nothing when you live in the digital era.
Dear Reader,
My child just turned a year old, and as with all curious little humans, has started taking an interest in all things technological.
While he hasn’t started crying for a cellphone yet, his primary concern seems to be in pulling out charger cables for hours of endless examination.
This then sparked the techno conversation – what’s an appropriate age to allow a child access to the internet or a cellphone?
Hubby and I are on the same page with this: not until he is old enough to both understand technology, but also be wary of it.
The Newcastle Advertiser has previously reported on social media precautions, especially with regards to scams and fake news.
The prevalence of this pandemic is enough to turn even the most ardent social media fundi into a paranoid technophile.
With internet privacy being breached on a daily basis, accounts hacked and fake profiles popping up with the regularity of colds and flu in winter, it’s no wonder taking precautions is second to nothing when you live in the digital era.
The newest craze hitting the social media landscape is something I see most of my Facebook friends have experimented with: FaceApp – the app that alters people’s faces with various filters – this could age you or alter your gender, so you can see what you could look like as a man/woman/20 years older etc.
Out of naturally justified curiosity, FaceApp has been doing the rounds in the Newcastle Advertiser Editorial Department, with some interesting results.
If you are considering trying FaceApp, here’s something to think about, courtesy of sciencealert.com:
“Last week, FaceApp was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with keen-eyed observers pointing out that the app’s terms of use give its Russian parent company, Wireless Lab, a very broad, global and lifelong licence to use the images. In short, once you sign up and use the app, the company can do pretty much whatever it likes with your photos. It could plaster a wrinkled version of your face across a billboard, website or the side of a skyscraper, and you would have no legal recourse.”
How do you feel about signing away control to your images by using an app? Let me know: reveshni@caxton.co.za or
call me on 034 312 6021.
ALSO READ: Is administration the answer for Newcastle?
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