A recent UK survey of 747 children found that one in five children, (19 %), between the ages of eight and 12 use social media sites such as Facebook, Bebo or MySpace. This is despite the fact that these sites officially have an age limit of 13. Though these sites insist that users type in their age, there is no verification process.

Some other interesting data from the study:

• One in six parents didn’t know their children are on social networks.
• 37 % of home internet users aged between five and seven visited Facebook in October 2009. (It is not known how many had profiles on the site).
• Among the under 11s, 70 % of those using blogs or information sites such as Wikipedia believed all, or most, of what they read.
• Most were cautious about allowing people to view their social networking pages - 83 % only allowed visits from friends and 4 % made the pages completely private.

Facebook has rejected calls to include an anti-pedophile "panic" button on its site, claiming that including the button on the main section of the site could deter anxious users from coming forward. Calls for the button to be placed prominently were made following the conviction of a serial rapist for the murder of schoolgirl Ashleigh Hall, who met him on the site.

Facebook said it was the responsibility of parents to monitor where they were online just as they do in the real world.

Source: Eight-year olds with Facebook pages, Telegraph.co.uk, March 27, 2010

Tags: UK, social networking sites, statistics