Facebook Age Survey: Many Don't Support Lowering Minimum Age Requirement

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Posted Jun 11, 2012
Anne Pilon

Facebook is considering lowering the minimum age required to sign up for an account. Currently, users must be 13 years of age or older, or at least claim to be, but the new changes might give access to pre-teens. What do Americans and parents think about this potential change? What do people think is an appropriate age to begin using social networking?

facebook age

Social Media Use

In Ask Your Target Market’s latest survey, 79% of respondents said they use social media. Females, respondents under 35, and those who make more than $75,000 a year were slightly more likely to use social networks. 83% of parents also use social networking sites.

Appropriate Age

When asked what is an appropriate age for people to start using social networking sites like Facebook, 6% of survey takers said they think any age is fine. 5% said they think 10 years old should be the minimum Facebook age. 28% said 13 should be the minimum. 33% think users should have to be at least 16 to sign up. 18% think users should be at least 18 years old. And 6% think users should have to wait until they’re at least 21.

Facebook Rules

60% of US respondents believe that Facebook should be responsible for regulating the minimum age of its users. 24% of respondents said they think that each parent should be able to make the decision of how old their child should be when they start using social media.Only 9% of respondents said they support Facebook’s idea to lower the minimum age. 48% said it might be okay to lower the minimum age as long as Facebook also implements some parental controls. And 44% said they don’t support the change at all.You can view the complete survey results in the widget below and be sure to click “Open Full Report” to take advantage of all the chart and filter options.Photo Credit: Create Your Own Video Game from FlickrWhat do you want to know? If you need some consumer insights on a particular topic, let us know in the comments below and we’ll consider it for an upcoming survey post.

Results were collected on June 10 via AYTM’s online survey panel.

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