Imagine an eight-year-old girl scrolling through her tablet. She's not playing an educational game or watching an age-appropriate video. Instead, she's navigating adult-targeted applications like Instagram or TikTok. This scenario plays out daily in homes across America and globally as children increasingly access platforms designed for adults, with algorithms and features that behavioral data scientists have specifically engineered and gamified to maximize engagement, regardless of the cost on mental health.
The statistics paint a disturbing picture. According to a national poll in the USA conducted by the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, 32% of parents of children aged 7–9 said their child uses social media apps, and that number rises to 49% for children aged 10–12.
Against this backdrop, a global kids technology company called myFirst has developed what may represent the first substantive reimagining of social media designed exclusively for children's developmental needs and safety.
Building Safe Social Media with Parental Control
myFirst Circle, launched at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023, departs from the approach of simply adding parental controls to platforms designed for adults. Instead, the company built its system from the ground up, incorporating safety into the architecture rather than appending it as an afterthought.
"We created myFirst Circle because no platform currently allows children to have authentic social engagements in a fully controlled, safe environment," explains G-Jay Yong, founder and CEO of myFirst.
Now, built with what they call a "Contact List" (Application Contact) and "Approve Phone White List," those who belong to the children's Application Contact will be able to create VOIP calls via data and video calls, as well as messaging and voice messages. Children and their parents can also add new contacts and classify them as family, besties, friends, or acquaintances.
"Children can stay in touch with genuine friends even after they leave for other schools, keeping their childhood friendships alive. With myFirst Circle, we want to let children explore the world of social media while ensuring we guide them along the way."
Architectural Safeguards vs. Surface-Level Controls
What distinguishes myFirst Circle from traditional social networks and "kids' versions" of adult platforms is its comprehensive architectural approach to safety. Unlike platforms that rely primarily on content moderation after the fact, myFirst Circle incorporates multiple structural safeguards.
Every child's account must be linked to a parental account that approves and classifies new members joining their children's social circles. Parents allow and categorize connections into four relationship types: family, Besties, Friends, and Acquaintances, creating concentric circles of trust that determine what content each connection can view. This system mirrors natural social development patterns, where children gradually expand their social circles under parental guidance.
The platform also eliminates reliance on phone numbers for communication, which provides significant privacy protection for minors. Additionally, myFirst Circle has replaced the conventional "Like" system with what they call a "ShoutOut" system, which encourages substantive interactions over the dopamine-driven approval metrics that psychologists have linked to anxiety and depression in young users.
Perhaps most importantly, Circle doesn't exist in isolation. It seamlessly connects with myFirst's kid-safe devices. A child's Circle account can link to a myFirst Fone R2 smartwatch for messaging, GPS check-ins, and video calls, or share snapshots directly from a Wi-Fi-enabled myFirst digital camera. Even grandparents can stay in the loop, receiving photo updates through myFirst's digital photo frame, making Circle not just a safer network, but a family-wide digital bridge.
Most notably, the entire system operates as a closed ecosystem without connections to external social platforms, eliminating the pathways through which children commonly encounter inappropriate content, cyberbullying, and predatory behavior.
Reimagining Rather Than Restricting
What makes myFirst Circle notable in this landscape is its approach of reimagining rather than merely restricting. While most regulatory and parental approaches focus on limiting access or monitoring usage of platforms designed for adults, myFirst Circle represents a more fundamental reconsideration of what social networking could look like if designed specifically for children's developmental needs and safety from inception.
By integrating directly with myFirst's ecosystem of devices, Circle turns everyday family tech, like kids' smart watches, children's camcorders, and digital photo frames, into connected touchpoints for safe sharing and communication. This ensures that digital literacy and social engagement grow hand in hand with trusted hardware designed for children.
"The fundamental problem with mainstream social media is that it was built for adults and later adapted, often poorly, for younger users," notes G-Jay Yong, founder of myFirst. The platform takes the opposite approach, starting with children's developmental needs and building outward.
This approach parallels emerging global regulatory frameworks like the UK's Children's Code (Age-Appropriate Design Code) and the EU's Digital Services Act, which require organizations to adopt child-friendly design standards rather than simply adding protections to adult-oriented platforms.
Addressing Limitations and Challenges of Social Media for Kids
Despite its innovative approach, myFirst Circle faces significant challenges. Yong acknowledges how the platform must compete for attention in an environment where children are drawn to the same platforms their older siblings and parents use. Additionally, as with any walled garden approach, the system's effectiveness depends on consistent parental involvement and oversight, a resource not equally available across socioeconomic backgrounds.
As digital technology becomes increasingly integrated into childhood development, the question is shifting from whether children should engage with social media to how these platforms can be designed to support healthy development while minimizing risks. myFirst Circle represents one vision of this future: a space where children can develop digital literacy and social skills in an environment architecturally designed for their safety and developmental needs.
For parents navigating this complex landscape, platforms like myFirst Circle offer an alternative vision, one where children's introduction to digital social spaces can be guided by design choices and parental involvement rather than dictated by platforms whose primary incentives often conflict with children's well-being.
