LinkedIn Opens Arms to High School Students

The online professional networking service LinkedIn is about to open up its services to teens to help them with university and career choices.

LinkedIn will lower its minimum age threshold starting September 12^, when teens from 13 to 16 will be able to set up accounts in most countries where LinkedIn activates.

For countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, the US, Spain and South Korea, the minimum age a person can join is 14. The minimum is 16 in the Netherlands and 18 in China. For the rest of the countries, the limit is the same and set at 13.

Along with the age requirement adjustment, LinkedIn introduces a new feature called University Pages, especially designed to help teens and students find out more information about universities across the globe. The universities` pages will allow undergraduates to connect to alumni and university staffers.

More than 200 universities worldwide applauded the initiative and already set up pages on LinkedIn and some thousands will follow into their footsteps, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

This change will most likely help the network grow significantly, but the new member segment also means a lot of extra responsibility. Kids may get harassed, manipulated and have their data misused. To meet this sort of situations, LinkedIn already set up a dedicated support team to exclusively handle requests from members younger than 18. Let`s hope their efforts will pay off.

For more information on how to stay on the safe side of social networking, check out our Ultimate Guide to Secure Your Social Media Account.