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Social Media Readiness by Age: An Honest Check for Parents

Most platforms set 13 as the minimum age, and the reasons are not arbitrary: endless feeds, public-by-default designs and advertising models are built for adult brains. But age is the floor, not the whole test — two children of the same age can be years apart in the skills that actually keep them safe: impulse control, reading social cues, handling upset without lashing out, and knowing when to come to a grown-up. This check combines the child's age with an honest maturity rating and returns a tier: wait a little longer, the starter tier for first accounts at 13-14, the wider tier for mid-teens, or the nearly-adult tier at 18. The graduated path beats the all-or-nothing fight — a first account that is private, supervised and reviewed beats a secret account at 15 that nobody knows exists.