WhatsApp raised their age to 16... thoughts?

Have you had a message pop up on Whatsapp asking for your age?

You might have seen on the news that Whatsapp have now raised the age to 16. They have done this to protect children from: bullying, stangers, sharing too much information, safety and making mistakes that dont go away. This comes after Jeremy Hunt -the health secretary- ordered apps like Whatsapp, facebook and Instagram to do more to stop online safety problems for children.

We have researched this during singing assembly on the newsround website.

During singing assembly at the beginning of May, we went on a trip around school to investigate the views of grown ups and children in regards to the effect that raising the age limit will have. We ended up encountering more than one heated debate along our travels and wanted to share with you some of our findings!

While every adult thought it was a positive thing, many questioned the real life effect this will have. We use the app but recognise we should already be 13. Will lying about being 16 be any different to lying about being 13?

Some teachers hoped that raising the limit might make both children and parents think more carefully about downloading the app and about communicating the risks to their children.

As part of pour research, before our investigation, we explored news round to gather as much information as we could. One interesting video we came across is:

It might just make you think about what you are agreeing to when you download your apps.