A Social Network for Kids? Seriously?

Togetherville.

It’s being called the “a social network for kids with training wheels.”

In private beta until recently, Togetherville aims to be the safe social media alternative for kids 6-10. Kids can befriend other children (and adults chosen by their parents) from their parents FaceBook friend list. They can create art, play games, watch and share videos all in a semiprivate environment, everything is vetted prior. Comments are limited to a pull-down menu of preselected phrases, though a user can request additional phrases to be added.

Started by Mandeep Singh Dhillon, he created Togetherville because his son was interested in sharing pictures online with the family.

According to The New York Times, “Mr. Dhillon said this type of interaction helps children develop social skills that they can’t get from virtual worlds like Club Penguin, which protect children by having them act only through anonymous avatars.

We teach kids from a very early age, never let your identity be online, never let anyone know who you are, but we’re teaching some bad things,” he said. “Kids don’t learn how to be accountable.””

No ads, but revenue will be derived from children share virtual “gifts,” which are purchased through their parents.

Advising Mr. Dhillon is the CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, Stephen Balkam. According to The New York Times, Mr. Balkam “said that he thought the site could keep younger children off Facebook, where they are more likely to find inappropriate content and are less protected from potentially harmful interactions with strangers or bullies.”

My take?

Why should kids 6-10 be on a social network in the first place?

If my kids wanted to share pictures with the family, they can. Through me. Via email.

Children age 6-10 don’t need an identity online. They’re not ready for that. Even with “training wheels.” When do you need to teach them accountability? When you get them a cell phone, when they start to ask about chatting online. Then you need to have the online safety and privacy chat. And you keep having the chat.

I know I’m more conservative than most when it comes online privacy, especially with my children, but for GODSAKES, this venture is so wrong on so very many levels. At best they are exploiting kids with a not-so-very-social sanitized experience, friending kids of their parent’s friends. (I mean did you ever want to be friends with your parent’s friends kids? Seriously?) At worst they are pushing kids to be hooked even earlier to social media, online gaming and artificial socializing.

Excuse me, but my idea of being social at eight is to play hide & seek, not spending hours playing on a computer, super neat-o virtual gifts aside.

Plus, whose “vetting” these interactions on Togetherville? Not me. To me, this is one more thing I have to negotiate, monitor, and fight over with my children.  And for full disclosure, we have a Club Penguin account. It’s cute, and it’s used as a treat for the kids. Just like the Wii. My 7 year olds play the little games on it, but there’s not much “interaction.”  And that is not a bad thing.

Young kids don’t need to be introduce to social media. Children are developing their social skills and they don’t need to formulate them from pull-down menus and “vetted” artwork. They need to learn it on the playgrounds, playing baseball on a real field with real “in the flesh” friends.

It would seem that Togetherville, though may have been started with all the good intentions, is just one more electronic distraction trying to separating kids from their childhood.

But that’s just my opinion.