Tell Facebook: Pull the Plug on Messenger Kids App!

Why is Facebook trying to lure younger and younger kids onto its platform with its new Messenger Kids app, the first Facebook app specifically designed for kids under 13?

As parents, we know that’s too young. Indeed there are helpful learning tools and websites our kids can use. But spending additional time, at a younger age, on a messaging tool? Eek. That just goes too far.

Let’s be clear too: young kids aren’t ready to navigate online relationships. How many times have you as an adult seen or experienced something odd online? More than once, right? Kids don’t have the maturity level to manage online interactions, and/or understand what’s private or appropriate.

Research shows that social media use by teens is linked to significantly higher rates of depression, and adolescents who spend an hour a day chatting on social networks report less satisfaction with nearly every aspect of their lives.[1, 2] Eighth graders who use social media for 6-9 hours per week are 47% more likely to report they are unhappy than their peers who use social media less often.[3] And a study of girls between the ages of 10 and 12 found the more they used social networking sites like Facebook, the more likely they were to idealize thinness, have concerns about their bodies, and to have dieted.[4] Teen social media use is also linked to unhealthy sleep habits.[5]

Join us to tell Facebook to discontinue its Messenger Kids app.

1 Twenge, J. (2017, September). Have Smartphones destroyed a generation? The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/
2 McDool, E., Powell, P., Roberts, J., Taylor, K. (2016). Social media use and children’s wellbeing. IZA Discussion Paper No. 10412, Bonn, Germany: Institute for the Study of Labor.
3 Ibid.
4 Tiggemann, M. & Slater, A. (2014). The Internet and body image concerns in preteenage girls. NetTweens: The Internet and body image concerns in preteenage girls. Journal of Early Adolescence, 34 (5), 606-620 
5 Ibid.

Dear Mark Zuckerberg:

I urge you to discontinue the Facebook Messenger Kids app.

Messenger Kids appeals primarily to children who otherwise would not have their own social media accounts. It is not responding to a need - it is creating one.

Research shows that managing digital devices and social media is a real challenge for older children; younger children are simply not ready to navigate online relationships and privacy.

Almost half of parents say that regulating their child’s screen time is a constant battle. Messenger Kids will exacerbate this problem, as the anticipation of friends’ responses will be a powerful incentive for children to check – and stay on – a phone or tablet. Encouraging kids to move their friendships online will interfere with and displace the face-to-face interactions and play that are crucial for building healthy developmental skills, including the ability to read human emotion, delay gratification, and engage with the physical world.

In response to some of the scandals of the past year, you have vowed to “do better.” Doing better is leaving younger children alone and allowing them to develop without the pressures that come with social media use. Raising children in our new digital age is difficult enough. Facebook should not use it’s enormous reach and influence to make it even harder.

Thank you,

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