How Young is Too Young for Social Media?

As many of you know, the birth of my first child (a boy!) is imminent. We just crossed the 39-week mark yesterday and we are just buzzing with excitement in the Krzmarzick household.

So I set up a Twitter handle for him already: @WizKidKriz

And, of course, I am planning to create a GovLoop profile for him. 🙂

Though Krzmarzick is an unusual name and he probably won’t have much competition for LinkedIn and Facebook names, I am still wondering if I should nail down a social network presence for him.

Do I set up a Gmail account?

Should I start him on FourSquare so he can aspire to prominence as the Mayor of McDonald’s on Main Street in Durham?

I don’t have easy answers to some of these questions.

And they aren’t necessarily trivial.

In fact, Alan Silberberg (@You2Gov) just cautioned me on Twitter:

Granted, I don’t plan to encourage him to be tweeting and posting Facebook updates by the age of 3 or buying him a mobile phone at 5 (maybe when he goes to school he’ll need one, though 🙂

So what are your thoughts?

How young is too young to get started with social media?

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