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Are social networking sites appropriate for younger kids?

If you have kids under the age of 12, then you may know about the world ofWebkinz, a virtual Web world built around real-life stuffed animals. These Webkinz "pets", range from a horse to a dog and everything in between. These cute little plush pets that come with a unique secret code that can be plugged into the Webkinz World, where your child can feed the pet, help it sleep, play games, exercise it, etc.

The Webkinz World is part of a quickly emerging phenomena for kids on the Web; one that encourages children to be part of a virtual community and helps them to navigate through situations and circumstances that can aid them in real life.

Webkinz World is popular, mostly because of the cute stuffed animal angle, and also because it's considered cool to have more than one Webkinz.

Webkinz World invites young children to get engaged in social networking and parents seem to be embracing it. Parents are even getting children as young as preschool aged, involved with these virtual pets. On this site, young kids are drawn in to almost a daily obsession with caring and feeding their "pets." If they don't "feed" them daily, the pet dies. This is how the site hooks kids into coming back every day. The child earns points to be able to buy things as well as medical supplies for their "pets."

I, personally, don't think these sorts of social networking sites help our kids much. In my house, I don't allow Facebook until the summer after Freshman year in High School. This allows my kids time to be in the real world first and to become acclimated with high school and to the whole social scene there. Social networking for all its wonderful benefits (and I'm an active Facebook and Linked In subscriber) tend to suck kids in and draw them away from other activities I feel they should be participating in, like being outside, homework and other enrichment opportunities. That being said, my kids do have cell phones and are texting friends well before they are allowed a Facebook account, so at some point, Facebook becomes a natural extension to that. I just like to postpone it as long as possible....

This is my take...what do others think? Are any of your kids using Webkinz? Have you found there to be any benefits that I'm missing?

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