After starting my first job at The Works just over six weeks ago, an article published by Inc. magazine last week really annoyed me. The article, titled ‘11 Reasons a 23-Year-Old Shouldn’t Run Your Social Media’,made the point that young people should not be left in charge of an organisation’s social media profiles as they cannot be trusted to use it correctly.

Part of my role at The Works is to develop the agency’s social media presence as well as support social media activity across the agency’s client base. After turning 21 just over three weeks ago, I fit into the age bracket that the author believes is irresponsible.

The article states that 23 year olds aren’t mature enough to handle social media accounts and don’t have enough understanding of online etiquette. It also states that you can’t control what the individual’s friends post to your sites and talks about the person keeping your passwords and locking you out of your profiles.

I agree that not everyone aged 23 has the skills to effectively manage social media for an organisation. However, the situations discussed in the article are very extreme cases and portray the idea that no 23 year old can effectively manage social media accounts.

In reality, however, there are a large number of people in the given age bracket who can and who, the majority of the time, can manage social media better than their elders. People of my age group, those slightly older and definitely those younger than me have grown up with social media and use it as a primary form of communication. We have been bombarded with messages from other organisation’s using social media and understand what makes good or bad online communication. Anybody can post negative or inappropriate comments to a site, whether they are friends of the 23 year old managing your accounts or not.

There are some valid points made in the article and I agree with some of them to a certain extent. However, I believe age is just a number and doesn’t reflect maturity or ability. The decision about whether a person is responsible enough or not to manage a social media account comes down to each individual and the situation. It is not possible to tarnish all people of the same age with the same maturity level or ability to manage a situation.

I’m sure there are a number of views about this topic, what do you think? Do you agree with the author or not?