Rose: This is a fuss about nothing: there's no harm in our using it

An 11 year-old's view

Tuesday 13 April 2010 19:00 EDT
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I was only 10 when I first started using Facebook about a year ago. Like many children in Britain, I lied about my age. It's only supposed to be for those aged 13 and over, but of course many others (and me) ignored this and made ourselves appear years older.

I changed my date of birth from 1999 to 1993 so that I seemed 17. I think children do this to be in with a certain crowd, or maybe they do it just to socialise with friends. My friends and me mainly go on Facebook to chat and look at each other's photos.

On the other hand, some children do use Facebook inappropriately. One 11-year-old girl in my class made a fake account and posted incredibly rude and explicit things. All of the parents were very upset and my mum made me delete her as a friend. None of the parents really agrees with their children using Facebook, but we still use it anyway. After that incident, my school sent out a letter about Facebook saying we shouldn't be using it.

The site now has this new report button: if anyone posts anything rude or mean you can report him or her, and he or she will get banned. My mum says I am breaking the law, but to be honest I don't care, because I know I won't be arrested or anything like that. My view on children using Facebook is that, as long as they don't make friends with people they don't know, they will be fine – this is all a big fuss about nothing.

I have a 14-year-old brother and a 16-year-old sister. I asked to be friends with them on Facebook but they both rejected me because they did not want me seeing all of the rude stuff they post!

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