Messenger Kids: Do We Want "Mini-Me's” That Are Also Hooked Up On Facebook

Recently, Facebook rolled out Messenger Kids, an app that allows children under 13 to text or video chat with peers and family members whom their parents approve. The marketing effort aims at introducing a new generation of users to the Facebook universe and increasing consumer loyalty. Messenger Kids will not display ads, but that does not mean that Facebook will cut down on its data-mining.

Still, this Guardian op-ed goes beyond exploring Facebook's rationale and discussing the privacy concerns and focuses on a different, broader aspect of social media use by children. Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff asks an important question: do we want children to copy our addiction to social networks?

"Children will always want to play at being grownups, but the point is surely to encourage them to copy us at our best, not our worst. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with Facebook’s new overture to the under-10s," writes Hinsliff in the op-ed.

The author doesn't take an easy way out and didn't turn the article into a fault-finding exercise. It's not about all that is bad about social media — it's just about timing.

"Social media does undeniably bring joy, solace and good times. But so does booze, which is why we make kids wait until they’re old enough to understand the downsides, " writes Hinsliff.