Grom Social 鈥� a social network for people under 16, made by a 13-year-old
When 13-year-old Zach Marks's parents kicked him off of Facebook, he didn't get mad, he made his own social network. Now, the 16 and under GromSocial.com has 70,000 members in 199 different countries and a staff of 16.
When 13-year-old Zach Marks's parents kicked him off of Facebook, he didn't get mad, he made his own social network. Now, the 16 and under GromSocial.com has 70,000 members in 199 different countries and a staff of 16.
No pressure or anything, but we鈥檒l be watching GromSocial.com 鈥� a social network site for people under 16 鈥� to see if it isn鈥檛 one of the best ways for kids to learn safe, constructive use of social media.
It was started by 13-year-old Zach Marks in Florida after his parents kicked him off of Facebook,聽Florida Today reports.
Even the county sheriff, Wayne Ivey, believes that there is no better source of safety messaging to kids than a peer, according to the paper.
GromSocial 鈥渉as 70,000 members in 199 countries and a staff of 16,鈥� and maybe it鈥檒l support user safety through individual and corporate best practices.
It defines 鈥済rom鈥� as 鈥渁 promising young individual who is quick to learn,鈥� which describes its founder. Zach started getting in trouble in school for talking too much and not paying attention, so his parents had him tested for an attention disorder, only to find out from the doc that he was just smart and bored.
This summer 鈥渢he Marks family and accompanying web site staff are on a cross-country tour in a 35-foot RV, taking the company鈥檚 core messages of anti-bullying and cyber safety directly to kids鈥� around the country. I just hope they鈥檝e got accurate information and aren鈥檛 exaggerating the bullying problem.
Maybe, as self-appointed experts on cyberbullying, they read an important article about cyberbullying in the journal Psychology of Violence last fall which said: 鈥淎lthough there was a small but significant increase in youth online harassment from 6 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2010, the percentage of more serious harassment, either repeated harassment or incidents that caused victims distress, were experienced by only 5 percent of youth in 2010鈥� (the article was entitled聽鈥淥nline harassment in context: Trends from three youth Internet safety surveys鈥�).
That鈥檚 hardly the 鈥渉uge problem鈥� Zach鈥檚 dad Darren Marks was cited by Florida Today as calling cyberbullying, and it鈥檚 important for anyone involved in Internet safety education to get that right because of what we鈥檝e all learned from the social norms research about how perception affects behavior (see聽this聽for more on that).