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Watching Kids Via Mobile Phone
Joe the Lesser writes "This BBC article says how parents could soon keep a much closer eye on what children are up to on their way to and from school thanks to a mobile monitoring system. It will send text alerts to their mobile phone if the child deviates too far from that route or takes too long getting there."
Like this won't be hard to fool. Give your phone to a friend that *is* going to the school event. Or any number of a million different ways. Kids are very innovative.
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Was world war II fought so that we could enjoy the freedoms we don't want our children to?
Like the freedom to get snatched while walking to school? As with any information utensil, it's only as invasive as you make it. Something like this appeals to me as a father of a young daughter. I wouldn't use it to track where she's going, only to alert me if something "went wrong". What they fought for in WWII is to allow me the freedom to utilize this tool if I think it necessary.
"Some good parenting = trust ! facist paranoia."
... leaving your phone at home, or turning your phone off. Now perhaps people will say that since they are kids, and most kids are irresponsible, this is a good thing to do. However:
I never had this problem with my parents. They always trusted me, I'm pleased to say, however, I'm not here to discuss me. There are a million ways to get around this, such as
"Rules are meant to be broken"
-Some wise soul
I take for example spy software that my best friend's mother put on his computer. He wasn't computer savvy enough to bypass it, however, if I had had such software on my computer:
1. I would hate my parents, and feel resentful towards them.
2. I would do my best to bypass this with things that are available here.
Don't people realize that spying on your kids will only make them want to break the rules? If I knew that my parents were the type that would spy on me while I'm at school, then I would refuse to have a cell phone.
This seems to me to be something for overly paranoid and protective parents that think they can't trust their kids, and need to know at what second of the day their kids are doing anything.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
They have similar devices already. Usually they are attached to the ankles of Inmates who are under house confinement. You want your children to grow up in fear, strap one of these phones to them and teach your children to be afraid of the consequences of deviating from the defined path. Why not proactively teach them the right way to conduct themselves through positive reinforcement rather than by making them paranoid?
An average one mile walk will have around 10 checkpoints but the parent can have fewer if they wish.
Maybe by the time my children get around to having children we'll have mobile phones that can completely rob our children of free will. Hell, since we're already starting to design them from birth maybe phone triggered on(wake)/off(sleep) switches as well. Anything to keep us from actually having to waste our precious time or assume any sort of responsibility for our kids - that's what technology and the government are for!
Presumably, the reason parents aren't able to maintain a close trust-building connection to their kids its that they are too busy.
Yet...they have time to program their Sprint "Orwell's Friends and family" plan and change the parameters every time their kid goes to the mall.
<free advice> Invest the time in your kids rather than their phones! </free advice>
(sig on loan to Smithsonian)
Hush, my baby. Baby, don't you cry.
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you.
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
What we do to our kids, they will eventually turn around and do it to us.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I know that legally colonial serfs had more rights than I do as a minor in the USA, but I wouldn't take shit like this.
This is just begging for waterproof-testing, dogbiteproof-testing, bullyproof-testing, backingcaroverproof-testing, and fireproof-testing. I can understand the acceptability for much younger children, but by the time we get a single friend with a driver's license the "leash" idea is dead in the water.
You celebrate that the government doesn't have the right to put a radio collar on you, yet you jump at the oppurtunity to put one on your own child!
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
First they required implants until you turn 18, but I was of age so I was silent.
Then they required implants to get discounts at the grocery store. But I buy all my food at the froofy vegan store so I was silent.
Then they required implants to carry a gun, but didn't think I could successfully revolt against a tyrannous government so I was silent.
Then they required implants to drive a car, but even working the required 72 hours a week I couldn't afford my own vehicle so I was silent.
Then the government discovered an axis between civil rights groups, terrorists and liberals, and the only people left to speak up for me were 19 year old republican vegan pacifists with poor eyesight, and she was shot so I was fucked.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Oppression always shows its strongest form on children. There is an enormous amount of power in the hands of the parents.
Parents do things to children that would be unconscionable on ordinary citizens, or even the worst criminals.
Think about it. Think of the uproar that would occur if the government:
- Drugged undesirables with adult 'ritalin'.
- Tracked our movements to make sure we were in the right place at the right time.
- Removed the right to free speech like they do at schools. (even though the supreme court ruled that the right to free speech did not end when students and teachers entered the school doors)
Just something to think about.
I am certain that no one, not even the cellular services, will use this to their advantage...
::walking downtown::
::Text message beeps::
Two years later...
I open it and it says,
"Why not try a tasty burger from 'Flinging Freddy's' only 2 blocks away."
Call my cynical,
--Joey
I'm not suggesting a legal remedy, nor am I saying that parenting should be restricted by the government. I am saying that placing such restrictions on children is a bad idea and is rarely in their best interest.
I care because I read George Orwell's 1984, and I saw that as a possible future.
No one gives a shit about parent and child relationships so long as they aren't physically or sexually abusive. In 15 months, is it likely that I won't give a shit either? Do any of us care about the plight of other human beings that we can't directly relate to?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
WARNING: Timmy is leaving the sceduled path deserters will be shot! there is a viable alternative for this device. actualy WALKING WITH your child to school. but of course if thats too much you can have your robot drug your child and have him shipped to school via fed ex.
Because everyone knows there's no difference between kids and criminals. Or is that kids and property?
Bumper sticker: My junenile delinquent is screwing your honor roll student.
We live in a time where our civil liberties are in great peril, and it seems that so very few people seem to care (present company excepted, of course). Are we raising a generation of kids that have been so tightly supervised by parents that they see nothing amiss when government takes over the same supervisory role as they mature to adulthood? Sometimes I wonder...
You realized you shouldn't because you were given the chance to come to that decision like a human, not tethered to your parents 24/7.
Trust works both ways. Parents who subject their children to this kind of treatment show that they are the ones who have problems with trust.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"