Welcome to Webkinz World: Social Networking for Younger Children

Webkinz World welcomes 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 that promote social networking with total strangers on the internet.

Virtual pets are nothing new. We have had Furbies, robot dogs, Gigapet and Cabbage Patch dolls (not a pet but the same craze). But none of these encouraged dangerous or unhealthy behaviors as much as the Webkinz. Webkinz are nothing more than an inexpensive plush toy that takes on of life of its own when their Webkinze World online takes shape.

Children are being drawn into a daily obsession with this online website. This is how they feed and care for there virtual pet. The children need to earn points to be able to buy things and to get medical needs for their pet or there pet will die. Plus children can interact with other children in the online community. Hence the child now needs to be connected to the computer and the internet every day.

Even MySpace, the largest social networking site on the internet has set age limits for its online community. No one under the age of 14 is allowed. Too often children are targets by online predators on social networking sites and yet the Webkinz World is targeted for children between the ages of 4 to 14. If MySpace, owned by Fox Media, cannot control its users and guarantee that it is a totally safe environment for its users, than how can the Webkinz site make such a guarantee?

It would not be too difficult for an adult to purchase one of these plush toys and gain the code to access the Webkiz World website as a child. There is no way to prevent this. Even eBay is selling these stuff animals as a collector's item. To be able to trace who actually is buying the toy and for what purpose is an unknown. These toys and their access codes could be coming from anywhere.

After all the media attention about the risks involved in social networking sites and pedophiles, here comes another social site that advertises the users age to be so very young. Webkinz World welcomes the very young to come and socialize, but are there some serious trappings for our younger children? Hopefully parents will take warning from disasters from other social networking sites.