Why is stating your age not allowed on CS?

[skrapple]

I've been on this site since 2012 but I've never quite understood this rule. I absolutely understand every other privacy information rule but I fail to see how sharing your age could be any sort of clue to your identity, so I'm curious to see if this question has been answered or if there is a real reason for this aside from extreme caution.

[Pyromaniacal]

Sharing one's age online could be dangerous, as young users could be easily taken advantage of. It's a general rule on most kids' sites to not share your age - even if it can't directly clue into your identity, a younger user could be tricked by an older one to give away information that they don't want to share (ie real name, school, home address, etc) because they don't know any better.

[skrapple]

That's a good point. I still find it pretty odd, though- but that may just be because I am on many other sites where sharing your age with others is commonplace, and am really only recently beginning to revisit CS.

[Aaron✦]

It's less so that sharing your age itself is a massive clue and more of a precautionary measure - say a child has already shared their first name and excitedly told their new "friend" it was their birthday and what they got. If they then share their age, whoever this "friend" is now has a full date of birth and name to work with. If the child mentions a landmark or something near where they live, it just gets easier and easier to narrow down. Sharing their age also makes it easier to target them because of it.
Even a full name wouldn't be much to work with alone, but when you start adding all the little details together things start to get much more dangerous, so it's easier to tell a child not to share any of these things to begin with.^^

[arabella !!]

I also don't suggest putting 16+ or 13+ somewhere on your profile. It is not as vague as you think it may be.

[skrapple]

Ahhhh, that makes a lot of sense. I had never thought of it like that. Thanks so much!

And, smofir, thanks for the tip. I think I used to do that when I was younger.