The women’s majlis: adjusting children to a more tech-savvy world

A 5-year-old girl gets up before sunrise. It’s 5.31am on a weekend morning. As she brings down the curtain to expose the large glowing sun rising slowly in the sky, she pulls her iPad off the charger. She stares through the window as the colours in the sky change, growing more vivid with every minute that passes. She opens the iPad and scrolls through the list of apps, eventually coming to Snapchat. She taps the icon and lifts the device, pointing its camera towards the window to capture the sunrise. She types “good morning everybody” and posts it as a story that will be viewed by her fans.

As she goes about her day, the little Techno Miss captures moments that no one around her assumes will be made public, for the eyes of her loved ones only, they think. But to their surprise, those moments make their way out for the world to see.

While it might seem innocent enough and a sign of the times, it’s worth remembering the amount of people who are able to view this little girl’s snaps. It raises questions around the effects of allowing a 5-year-old child to use such an app.

Snapchat has about 100 million users daily. According to its terms and conditions: “No one under 13 is allowed to create an account or use the services”.

Children are more tech-savvy than ever. The concern is that bright 5-year-olds like the one mentioned are playing in an adult world and mimicking adult behaviours.

What’s the role of parents in this? Monitoring a child’s technology usage is a must. Signing them up for a Snapchat account, by putting in a false birthdate, is dangerous. In this case, a child under the age of 13 can access Snapchat if the application has been registered by another person, but the device it’s on is accessible to everyone.

I think Snapchat, while fun, can be a threat. Snapchat isn’t about privacy; it’s about transparency and telling a personal story to the world. In the hands of young children who don’t understand the dangers involved in sharing too much information, it can be a time bomb. There’s also an app called SnapKidz – a version of Snapchat that includes an interface for taking snaps, captioning, drawing and saving them on the device, but without the ability to send or receive snaps or add friends. It’s much better suited to young children.

In the 21st century, children differ considerably from children of previous generations, especially when it comes to technology. And while the family of this young girl has claimed they were unaware she knew how to use the app, it’s worth remembering that unless protected, tech-savvy children will be out there in the online world for all to see before they should be.

I’m not saying don’t use Snapchat, but it’s only a suitable app for those old enough to understand it.

Maitha AlKaabi is an administrative assistant at Abu Dhabi Media.

If you have a good story to tell or an interesting issue to debate, contact Melinda Healy on [e-mail].