Google Plus, despite the age limitation, has mustered over 10 million users in under 3 days.
For those who don’t know yet, teenagers under 18 cannot sign-up for a Google Plus account. You can witness the rage in Google Help Forum where college-goers, school students — somewhere between the age of 13 to 17 — have expressed their disappointed with the age limit locked down by Google.
Despite the invite and the open registration, Google treats anyone under 18 years of age with the following message:
This feature is not yet available for your account: You must be over a certain age to use this feature.
Facebook has a 13+ age requirement, and I was bemused with the restrictions put forth by Google Plus. So, I took a step further to find out the reason why Google Plus would stamp the 18+ age limit.
This is what Seth, a Google employee, had to say:
Hey Everyone,
Thank you for kicking off this conversation about Google+ Field Trial. The thread that cwlees (user) references is correct with regard to the current age eligibility to join Google+. We want to make sure that Google+ provides the best experience to users under 18 who may be eligible to use our product before we open it up to them.
Apparently, Google Plus FAQ page doesn’t detail out the minimum age requirement. The only page with concrete information is this, which says:
Google Plus is open Beta – This means invitations are no longer needed – 18+ only.
But my under-18 Friends are on Google Plus.
If this question boggles your mind, then I think it’s fair to assume the following:
As anyone with a Gmail account can sign-up for Google Plus, there’s a fair chance that your friend has faked his date of birth while signing up for a Gmail account.
Or, he/she is using someone else’s — or their parents’ — Gmail account to access Google Plus.
What to do?
If you are struggling to get into Google Plus because of your age, then there’s nothing much you could do. However, as Google is rigorously employing improvement into their social networking site, it wouldn’t take too long for the age limit to come down to 13.
For now, just hang in there, and wait for Google to amend their age policy. Maybe, you know, if you feel its okay to game Google, then use a different Gmail account to access Google Plus.
