Modern marketing just preys on parental guilt. If you don't buy a $300 sensor or track your kid's location every second, they subtly make you feel like an irresponsible parent.
It's actually sad for kids. In childhood being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone taught you how to cope with the world. But if someone monitors a child all the way to their college dorm door, it's unclear how they're supposed to develop personal autonomy at all
> being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone
none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
my hesitation is from knowing these _dont_ work: by the time airtag shows where someone actually is that isnt a 500m circle, you can see them with your analog eyes :/
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
When I was about 8 years old I was allowed to go with the bus by myself between my mom and my dad.
I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.
I'm sure of the technology was available at the time, my mom would have placed an airtag on me, and without a doubt, would have seen me miss my bus-stop and jumped into her car to pick me up wherever I ended up. Bless her heart, but I'd miss the opportunity of figuring it out by myself.
Of course, just one silly example, but I could see if this was constantly happening, a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic, and not even trying to solve things yourself because you know your parent will come save the day. Until they don't, of course.
> I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.
if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)
> a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic
i dont fear a perfectly functioning society; im an adult and am also used to 911/999/etc being available. some people watch Demolition Man and get the wrong idea...
> if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)
No. An airtag works for your mom no matter if you want it or not, some payphone on the street places the agency about calling help into your hands.
> having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom
I had enough coins for 2 phone calls in a sealed envelope in my school bag for emergencies - probably still in the bottom of my bag wherever it may be.
It is not an airtag. The payphone doesn't use a network of snitches to say where you are at all times. It is really bad to instill the idea that you are never private, it makes our surveillance situation worse and more accepted. Which i am sure hackernews and the EFF have plenty of articles to show why normal people need privacy.
How so? Mom has no way to know where you are until you initiate the call. Isn’t a big part of the developmental point to have kids recognize they’re lost on their own and then ask for help from a friendly stranger? What’s the ‘no airtag’ scenario you imagine?
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
Do you want to install an app on your phone that will track you and your online activities for the government? They won't interfere, they just want to know what you're up to and help. Children are people and want some privacy too. I know I did.
Presumably, when this generation comes of age they will largely answer this question with "sure, I don't see the problem", which many will consider a big win.
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages, meaning they become aware that they're being watched at every moment of their lives. In my opinion that does affect said kids' future look on life (once they will have become adults, that is).
> It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages
Santa Claus has been around since before airtags; you dont need technology to make kids fearful of invisible retribution, just a clever song ("he sees you when youre sleeping, he knows when youre awake")
We’ve strip-mined every cultural superstition and monster for the entertainment industry, but those superstitions and monsters often existed - even in the minds of adults - to warn against certain behaviors, actions or locations.
It's true that the idea of 'someone is watching you' is very old and a well-tested method of social control. The religious angle may be why so many people are receptive to mass surveillance today. But not everyone is religious, and those that are rarely live with a true, 24/7 feeling of dread and fear that someone is actually watching. The fear of consequences is very distant, and there is often forgiveness for small infractions. That fear becomes very different when you can put a face and a name to the people watching you, and you know they can affect your life in very real and immediate ways. This is the preconditioning that starts with childhood surveillance.
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket.
Technically true. However I think there is a very small percentage of parents that can keep themselves from interrupting in such a situation. Actually I think it leads to a slippery slope situation (the article calls it a downward spiral) where the interruptions will be easier to make the more you do it as a parent. The only question remaining is how high up the slope do you start and how fast do you slip?
Most marketing for most things preys on guilt, fear, and avarice - negative emotions are uncomfortable, and you first create the negative emotion in the target's mind, and then sell them the solution, to alleive their discomfort.
I was a kid who wandered. Sometimes through bear infested forests at night. Sometimes through abandoned factories with collapsing roofs. Sometimes to the homes of people my parents strongly disapproved of.
I lived. So did pretty much everyone else. I had a few significant fuck-ups. I learned from them, and didn't repeat them. In my childhood, I knew one kid who died from misadventure - grain silo - and many who died from disease - meningitis, cancer, sepsis. Perhaps parents should keep their children in protective plastic bubbles, if they're going to be consistent about it.
My kid - no tracking, and autonomy that I see makes other parents writhe with discomfort, as they're like "she'll be stolen! Her kidneys!", and I'm going "you guys don't understand statistics, and your kids are going to live with you until you die, and lead stunted lives".
Many decades ago - there was barely a dangerous / dumb thing you could do roaming my neighbourhood that the network of mothers wouldn't relay back by the time you got home.
Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence. Parents don't want to be accused. Politicians don't want to be accused. Nobody ever does.
So parents keep their children indoors for fear of being arrested from them crossing the street on their own. Politicians are unable to renege on "child safety" laws because the populace will believe they are harming children and vote them out.
But these things work the way they do because of the social consequences embedded in our culture, caused by the perceived harm to children from inaction. People want to avoid accusations of being complicit in harming children by supporting politician X or failing to do Y, as that has legitimate societal consequences when taken far enough, so there little incentive to diverge from this narrative.
I lived a chunk of my childhood on a road where most of the traffic was tractor trailers. I went outside and even waited for the bus. Nobody died, nobody got hurt.
It's so wild to me as a millennial who grew up with a single mom who worked all day to see the obsession with child surveillance/protection that permeates society today. When I was a kid, my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something. In the wintery months I was regularly gone for all daylight hours, and yeah she knew where I was, in theory, but I wasn't wearing a GPS, and her up-to-date information on my place of being was strictly down to my communicating that info.
And this situation was not unique to me, my friends all had basically the same thing going on with minor differences. And like, I dunno maybe this is a reach, but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human, who is able to move and function in the world autonomously, and it seems like newer generations of kiddos are really struggling with that in particular. Perhaps these are connected?
> my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something.
> but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human
These are the same foundations that the surveillance of kids today is build on. It is the same reasoning just further down the slope (enabled by technology).
You probably also knew friends that did not have to call their parents at the same frequency (or more).
Let's be honest that was the average of that day, and today the average is tracking location at any time. If your mom was taking the average measures in that environment she would probably exercise the average measures in the current day environment.
I'm not saying that it was bad. I am saying we should probably be careful with the balance between autonomy and tracking since the same reasoning is used with your mom having you call in vs the current day tracking.
I have heard people say "free range kids" about this.. the one that gets to me is the line of cars in front of each school now.. this is a different age
Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children. Most of the people I know who are using this stuff do it completely voluntarily, not because of how they will be seen, but because they genuinely want to increase safety for their child.
Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement. I do actually care about my safety and health, and will take reasonable measures for a chance to preserve it; and that same feeling extends to my children.
This is a classic short-term/long-term trade-off. Being informed at all times is gratifying in the moment. It is harmful for everyone, including the parent, long-term.
And seatbelts are one of the cases where it is good short-term and long-term, but you’re right, the same mechanic applies. No one wears a seatbelt because “over a lifetime. I have a lower chance of dying in a car crash“. We wear it because “I’m less likely to die today.“
Strange, I wear the belt because I believe it may save me some day over my lifetime. I have very little concern for it happening this particular day. Or at least I used to. Its just SOP now.
The problem is that protecting children overzealously in the short term can make them more vulnerable in the long term. By attempting to protect them from every concievable risk, real or imagined, you risk preventing them from developing the defences that they will need later in life.
Traffic collisions and drowning are the major causes of death in children in developed countries; not childhood illness, as it was formerly, thanks largely to vaccination. Better road safety - that starts with _you_, car owners! - swimming lessons, and greater adult supervision when children are near water, are the most important things here, not surveillance.
When people do horrific things to children, it is almost never a stranger, but someone close to home, and again surveilling the child will not prevent that.
> Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Any price? What about a portion of your child's development and autonomy?
> Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children.
They do, and they should. But due to the fact that this really is a legitimate concern in society, and always will be, it is also an infinitely renewable source of discontent that sways public opinion towards pursuing policies and parenting methods that don't actually help or protect children. Nothing short of a total panopticon can prevent 100% of harm to children, if even that. Yet saying "we will have less visibility into the safety of children if we choose to do this instead" is seen in the current climate as one of the most distasteful things you can say. So people are afraid to speak up and find alternatives.
Anything short of absolute perfection in child safety is seen as an unacceptable failure that merits new barriers to autonomy to prevent the next failure. To preserve the autonomy of childhood, there has to be a middle ground.
And not just dog owners; car drivers are apparently invulnerable to criticism or shame as well. Big SUVs have been demonstrated to kill children; people buy them, they don't care. Driving fast has been demonstrated to kill children; people speed, they don't care. They think it will never happen to them, as they believe themselves to be Good People, and getting to their destination fast in their nice big car is important to them, and any attempt to curtail that an affront to their freedom.
And when they mow children down, as statistically some of them always will, it's then always described as "an accident", as though performed by some capricious god beyond all human control.
Kids now teens. We never had a tv. Only let them watch dvd on laptop. Never allowed them on tiktok. Never gave them surveillance watches (kiddyzoom). I also did not have whatsapp, or even carried my phone half of the time.
They hated us for it. Other parents called us crazy. “They should learn how to handle social media!” And now their kids are unmanageable and ours thank us for shielding them.
They should learn how to handle reality before being inundated with an endless overwhelming deluge of unreality, outright bullshit, and lies. Kudos to you for giving them that chance.
Childhood surveillance may become a very lucrative proving ground for new tech. The usual outrage about privacy doesn't apply here because of a combination of a very helicopter parenting-friendly society and a common understanding the even older children have zero latitude in making any choices for themselves and are owned by their parents and institutions, who can at any point choose to force them into any new schemes.
I think the next direction these surveillance companies are going to head into is even more invasive aggregation and processing. Instead of just giving parents a basic rundown of what's happening now, have phones record every spoken word and then mine it for sentiment analysis to reveal hidden thoughts and opinions. Schools could deploy software onto all students that tracks everything they say to each other on school property, which then could be used to build social graphs, identify misbehavior, rank social cohesion and obedience to understand which groups are good and bad influences - with all this data immediately provided to teachers and parents so they can take action. Once this is normalized, it will come for us all, just a bit more covertly.
There was a time when I liked having intricate data about things because it was interesting for me to learn about my own world. That rosy-eyed picture was polluted by surveillance capitalism, and it's gotten to the point where I'd often rather write things down on paper or in a markdown or yaml doc rather than use an tracker app, just because I know that my own hand-written data isn't one profile in a global data set used to squeeze value out of me.
Also, after reading the free part of the article, I propose the word "pramopticon".
Same, early 2000s I remember dreaming about having some wristband or something that would read all the "data" from my body and automatically know what's wrong and so on, even dreaming of being able to have "automatic journals" created from dreams and what not, my imagination was the limits, collect all the data, create miracles!
Then Snowden happened, and Cambridge Analytica, and Event X and everything else. Now I'm the same, all "family data" lives on harddrives that are physically in my home, I prefer paper notes over anything on my computer, for my journal at least, and my perspective is basically that secrets are impossible over the internet. If you want something secret, it cannot go through internet pipes even once.
Technically, the wristband dream isn't totally dead. Like you said, the real poison pill is internet access. As long as tech is physically walled off from bad actors who really really really want to take a look at it, it's not impossible. But as 'the future' comes for us all, the idea of computerized, but not connected devices becomes more of a pipe dream.
It touches on it a bunch of times, most of it falling under the umbrella of how constant surveillance does not teach kids how to be independent and capable of functioning on their own as an adult as well as they should be.
Twenty years ago, the level of tracking we have today already would have seemed idiotic. But we've accepted it for convenience, not through choice but through the arms race of tech companies offering "free" services in exchange for convenience which in turn gives its users a temporary boost in their productivity.
I've come to the conclusion that it is primarily our instinct that drives this process and we cannot control it, except by refusing the tech altogether.
An individual refusing the tech simply disadvantages them against others and the state. Also, individuals who used to be railroaded by those who were more powerful gained the power to expose it with the advent of technology.
However, now that video editing is cheap and easy, perhaps the individual loses this advantage since one video recording might just be one version of the truth and you need more recorded angles/versions that prove consistency.
> An individual refusing the tech simply disadvantages them against others and the state. Also, individuals who used to be railroaded by those who were more powerful gained the power expose it with the advent of technology.
But how long will the advantage of that exposure last when technology envelops us all and we have no recourse?
My cousin still tracks her 23-year-old daughter's location - I thought that was bananas, but in this article there's a 29-year-old who's being tracked by her mother. WTF???
I'm younger than both of these people and WTF. I don't think I know anyone that is being tracked by their parents and I'm just wondering what kind of family dynamic causes this.
I've learned it's not that uncommon. Even letting friends track you. I remember a thread on X where people in NYC were posting their friend's real time location and saying things like 'I can always tell when she had a bad day' because her icon was at a particular juice bar. It does seem smart, especially for 20-somethings in major cities. But posting your friends location isn't terribly smart
It's a thing.
I, personally, don't think I've ever trusted anyone (parents included) enough to let them track me. I wouldn't feel safer. But maybe some people have good and healthy relationships with their parents (not that forcing your child to be tracked is healthy, but if your child chooses to have that safeguard...).
I don’t get how posting their location in this instance matters. Unless the friend has a stalker, is a famous celebrity, or is operating under some really unusual threat model, what risk is there in the whole world knowing some random 20-something is at a random juice bar in NYC? They aren’t being targeted, this isn’t a controversial location, etc.
well in my particular example it's a juicebar she frequents when she's had a bad day. So, she probably lives or works in the neighborhood. And a detail I didn't share was that she was attractive (her icon on the map was her headshot). So someone could get it in their head to approach the person and know what she looks like, where she might be, and believe she needs cheering up
And it's NYC which has all sorts of people, many of which you may not want to be approached by.
If the juicebar gets tagged, then the people working there may start interacting with the friend in a way she may not appreciate.
Sending out life specifics, even if your not famous or have a stalker can be detrimental. And, it wasn't the friend's choice either. So, the original poster may loose a friend in exchange for likes on X.
The thing that never makes sense about this threat model is she lives or works in this neighborhood, which in NYC is many thousands of people. They see her, they can approach her, they can follow her back to her apartment if they chose. To get to said juice bar, she’s likely walked past a dozen mentally ill homeless people and maybe ridden the subway, where you’re confined to a metal tube underground with NYC’s most interesting for minutes at a time.
But none of that registers as a risk: instead it’s a hypothetical X user who is so struck by a headshot on a map that they travel across the city on the off chance she’s still at the juice bar? That’s like worrying about being struck by a meteorite, but paying no attention to the risk of getting hit by a car.
If a friend is posting a person's location, they likely post other information about that person. The aggregate information could allow the assembly of a much more complete picture of a person than is possible by observing a person at a random juice bar.
For example: are they married? Do they live alone? Who are some of their friends? Where do they work? What do they do at work? Have they recently lost/found/experienced something interesting? These are the kinds of details that can enable social engineering in digital and physical spaces. It's likely easier to lure a person into a dangerous situation if you reference minute details from their personal life.
Sometimes the threat model is "has $10k in a bank account" or "is young & attractive" or "practices a religion I don't like" or "it's Tuesday."
It's data entrusted to that specific person with the social contract to not share that data (assuming no permission for sharing was given). I would argue the same way if someone posted my full address online for example, you're breaking the social contract by sharing data I entrusted you with.
Perhaps they didn't tell their friend about that one abusive ex or an affair their having. Additionally in this case it is telling people that when this person is in a certain location they are having a bad day, possibly opening them up to harassment a scam or manipulation.
There are a lot of people that will use that information to their advantage, even if it is just for trolling.
For me, if I found out about a post like this I would stop any contact with the person effective immediately after informing them of not appreciating the post.
I have nearly the exact same situation. I like being able to see when my mom is visiting my sister or some other place we used to go, and I like my mom being able to see what I'm up to, like when I visit museums or parks. Sometimes on a phone call she'll say "I saw you visited ...some place... so I looked it up online. Did you know ...something interesting about it...?"
Is it okay to track phones if you pay the bill? Want to be independent, they buy your phone and pay the bill. Is it okay to track you if you are driving a vehicle titled in my name and insured by me? Yes!
Can you give a justification for either of those things? Would you not let your older child be on your phone plan or drive your car under your insurance 20 years ago because both of these things weren't really trackable back then? If you would, what changed? I simply don't get what 'lesson' this is meant to impart on them.
First, I responded to examples of 23 and 29 year olds. Second, I pay for my adult children's phones and don't track their locations, but I would if they asked me. They have lost phones and mentioned that they should at least setup find-my-phone and give access to someone. I would let them track me, but I'm still using a flip phone.
Vehicle insurance and owner liability is a whole different topic. I prefer to have them hold title and therefore liability, even if I were to give them the money to purchase and insure.
I doubt it’s so easy. More likely they’ll overtly break rules and violate norms with no sense of shame or embarrassment, like…(the future is now, just not evenly distributed)
The thing is the parents normalizing this kind of intrusion of privacy think they are in the right while creating a very dangerous world. Even things like going through your kids rooms (yes even when they live at home) is a huge privacy violation.
No wonder the "but think of the kids" argument is so effective, we all grew up being propagandized by or own parents and environment.
Privacy feels like such an innate desire. Your mention of parents going through your room brought back a few negative emotions tied to a few memories, where my mom either came to me with something she found in my room, or walked into my room and went directly to where something was hidden and pulled it out (indicating that she had already been snooping in my room and found it). Thinking about it, I realized that's one of the reasons I started hiding things where my parents couldn't easily get to them, like in the rafters in the garage, or in various forts and hideouts I created in the neighborhood.
> like in the rafters in the garage, or in various forts and hideouts
Now imagine your parents tracking you going into the garage every time or to specific hideouts.
Privacy is in my opinion one of the most important human rights that exist and the most frequently diminished or ignored, especially around parent/kid relations. Hence why it is a part of the UDHR (universal declaration of human rights).
With regards to kid/parent relation we are often too lenient as a society. One good measurement that you can keep in the back of your head to judge a kids invasion of privacy is the following question "If this kid was suffering from abusive parents, would this allow the parent to intervene the kid reaching out?".
I find that violent and bad behavior is shifted to environments without surveillance with both children and parents. The verbal and physical abuse is not on camera and is amplified off camera. They know this, they just don't care.
I think the problem here is what are you supposed to do with very low probability really bad events. I.e. your kid being kidnapped or similar. The probability of this extremely low, but it is unimaginatively bad. Therefore any small thing you do that will reduce the chance of this happening may seem reasonable.
It is not clear to me how to think about this rationally.
Part of the way to think about it is that you simply can't control such events. We never could and we never will. Trying to do so is a losing game for temporary psychological comfort only. I think the key is that the "small things" that you do are unlikely to actually reduce the probability in practice.
Stranger kidnapping is an extreme black swan, but there’s plenty of more realistic scenarios where tracking could mitigate a bad outcome. Kid gets off the school bus at the wrong stop: found in minutes. Kid is riding bike, falls and knocked out: found easily.
There’s a ton of rare, negative scenarios where risk reduction is so cheap and easy that you’re silly not to do it. Car accident deaths are about 1 in 100 million miles driven, you certainly can’t control other drivers, but not putting on a seatbelt is stupid.
Modern marketing just preys on parental guilt. If you don't buy a $300 sensor or track your kid's location every second, they subtly make you feel like an irresponsible parent.
It's actually sad for kids. In childhood being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone taught you how to cope with the world. But if someone monitors a child all the way to their college dorm door, it's unclear how they're supposed to develop personal autonomy at all
> being able to stay out a bit longer, solve sudden problems without calling mom, or just sit alone
none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
my hesitation is from knowing these _dont_ work: by the time airtag shows where someone actually is that isnt a 500m circle, you can see them with your analog eyes :/
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
When I was about 8 years old I was allowed to go with the bus by myself between my mom and my dad.
I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.
I'm sure of the technology was available at the time, my mom would have placed an airtag on me, and without a doubt, would have seen me miss my bus-stop and jumped into her car to pick me up wherever I ended up. Bless her heart, but I'd miss the opportunity of figuring it out by myself.
Of course, just one silly example, but I could see if this was constantly happening, a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic, and not even trying to solve things yourself because you know your parent will come save the day. Until they don't, of course.
already a thing.... look at the problem solving skills of some of the fresh grads
> I can remember two times I fell asleep on the bus, and ended up some other place, and had to figure out how to get home from there, by myself.
if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)
> a child might get accustomed to this "saving" being automatic
i dont fear a perfectly functioning society; im an adult and am also used to 911/999/etc being available. some people watch Demolition Man and get the wrong idea...
> if it involved asking a business (car service in my case) to let you use their phone, or already having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom... thats an airtag :)
No. An airtag works for your mom no matter if you want it or not, some payphone on the street places the agency about calling help into your hands.
> having a quarter and using a payphone to call mom
I had enough coins for 2 phone calls in a sealed envelope in my school bag for emergencies - probably still in the bottom of my bag wherever it may be.
It is not an airtag. The payphone doesn't use a network of snitches to say where you are at all times. It is really bad to instill the idea that you are never private, it makes our surveillance situation worse and more accepted. Which i am sure hackernews and the EFF have plenty of articles to show why normal people need privacy.
> that’s an airtag
How so? Mom has no way to know where you are until you initiate the call. Isn’t a big part of the developmental point to have kids recognize they’re lost on their own and then ask for help from a friendly stranger? What’s the ‘no airtag’ scenario you imagine?
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
Do you want to install an app on your phone that will track you and your online activities for the government? They won't interfere, they just want to know what you're up to and help. Children are people and want some privacy too. I know I did.
Presumably, when this generation comes of age they will largely answer this question with "sure, I don't see the problem", which many will consider a big win.
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket
It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages, meaning they become aware that they're being watched at every moment of their lives. In my opinion that does affect said kids' future look on life (once they will have become adults, that is).
> It instills a Panopticum-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages
Santa Claus has been around since before airtags; you dont need technology to make kids fearful of invisible retribution, just a clever song ("he sees you when youre sleeping, he knows when youre awake")
that only works for very vey very young kids.
I dont get your point
We’ve strip-mined every cultural superstition and monster for the entertainment industry, but those superstitions and monsters often existed - even in the minds of adults - to warn against certain behaviors, actions or locations.
Santa Claus for the very young; an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God for everyone else.
We have at least a several thousand year history of instilling a 'Panopticum[sic][1]-like psychology' in enormous swaths of society. More of the same.
1. please tell me this is a typo
Soon we'll all be watched over by machines of loving grace.
It's not "everyone" else though is it. Especially not in the recent decades where this surveillance has become a real thing.
What does that have to do with the subject of discussion: instilling a Panopticum[sic]-like philosophy in said kids since their very early ages?
It's true that the idea of 'someone is watching you' is very old and a well-tested method of social control. The religious angle may be why so many people are receptive to mass surveillance today. But not everyone is religious, and those that are rarely live with a true, 24/7 feeling of dread and fear that someone is actually watching. The fear of consequences is very distant, and there is often forgiveness for small infractions. That fear becomes very different when you can put a face and a name to the people watching you, and you know they can affect your life in very real and immediate ways. This is the preconditioning that starts with childhood surveillance.
And only on christmas day. They dont think long term, no getting christmas gifts is not a treat in november - it is infinetely far for a small kid.
Most kids have an important developmental moment where they realize Santa isn’t real
AirTag showed a mom her kid was in a lake, she made a big scene, frantically calling 911. Kid was not in the lake.
> none of these are prevented when you have an airtag in your pocket.
Technically true. However I think there is a very small percentage of parents that can keep themselves from interrupting in such a situation. Actually I think it leads to a slippery slope situation (the article calls it a downward spiral) where the interruptions will be easier to make the more you do it as a parent. The only question remaining is how high up the slope do you start and how fast do you slip?
Most marketing for most things preys on guilt, fear, and avarice - negative emotions are uncomfortable, and you first create the negative emotion in the target's mind, and then sell them the solution, to alleive their discomfort.
I was a kid who wandered. Sometimes through bear infested forests at night. Sometimes through abandoned factories with collapsing roofs. Sometimes to the homes of people my parents strongly disapproved of.
I lived. So did pretty much everyone else. I had a few significant fuck-ups. I learned from them, and didn't repeat them. In my childhood, I knew one kid who died from misadventure - grain silo - and many who died from disease - meningitis, cancer, sepsis. Perhaps parents should keep their children in protective plastic bubbles, if they're going to be consistent about it.
My kid - no tracking, and autonomy that I see makes other parents writhe with discomfort, as they're like "she'll be stolen! Her kidneys!", and I'm going "you guys don't understand statistics, and your kids are going to live with you until you die, and lead stunted lives".
Many decades ago - there was barely a dangerous / dumb thing you could do roaming my neighbourhood that the network of mothers wouldn't relay back by the time you got home.
yeah and that filter is the point - only the truly dangerous stuff would make it back to your mom, but nothing else.
You knew at all times you were being watched
Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence. Parents don't want to be accused. Politicians don't want to be accused. Nobody ever does.
So parents keep their children indoors for fear of being arrested from them crossing the street on their own. Politicians are unable to renege on "child safety" laws because the populace will believe they are harming children and vote them out.
But these things work the way they do because of the social consequences embedded in our culture, caused by the perceived harm to children from inaction. People want to avoid accusations of being complicit in harming children by supporting politician X or failing to do Y, as that has legitimate societal consequences when taken far enough, so there little incentive to diverge from this narrative.
The parents I talk to, and myself, keep kids inside so they do not get mowed down by a distracted driver in a huge vehicle.
I lived a chunk of my childhood on a road where most of the traffic was tractor trailers. I went outside and even waited for the bus. Nobody died, nobody got hurt.
It's so wild to me as a millennial who grew up with a single mom who worked all day to see the obsession with child surveillance/protection that permeates society today. When I was a kid, my mom required only that I let her know where I was gonna be, call her if those plans changed and let her know the new ones, and apart from that I was basically out the door by 7am and home for dinner, absent like sleepover plans or something. In the wintery months I was regularly gone for all daylight hours, and yeah she knew where I was, in theory, but I wasn't wearing a GPS, and her up-to-date information on my place of being was strictly down to my communicating that info.
And this situation was not unique to me, my friends all had basically the same thing going on with minor differences. And like, I dunno maybe this is a reach, but these were the foundations that IMO made me a responsible human, who is able to move and function in the world autonomously, and it seems like newer generations of kiddos are really struggling with that in particular. Perhaps these are connected?
These are the same foundations that the surveillance of kids today is build on. It is the same reasoning just further down the slope (enabled by technology). You probably also knew friends that did not have to call their parents at the same frequency (or more).
Let's be honest that was the average of that day, and today the average is tracking location at any time. If your mom was taking the average measures in that environment she would probably exercise the average measures in the current day environment.
I'm not saying that it was bad. I am saying we should probably be careful with the balance between autonomy and tracking since the same reasoning is used with your mom having you call in vs the current day tracking.
I have heard people say "free range kids" about this.. the one that gets to me is the line of cars in front of each school now.. this is a different age
Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children. Most of the people I know who are using this stuff do it completely voluntarily, not because of how they will be seen, but because they genuinely want to increase safety for their child.
Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Seems like "people only wear seatbelts so that they won't get tickets" type of reasoning, which is true for some, but many (myself included) like the additional safety and wear it regardless of law enforcement. I do actually care about my safety and health, and will take reasonable measures for a chance to preserve it; and that same feeling extends to my children.
This is a classic short-term/long-term trade-off. Being informed at all times is gratifying in the moment. It is harmful for everyone, including the parent, long-term.
And seatbelts are one of the cases where it is good short-term and long-term, but you’re right, the same mechanic applies. No one wears a seatbelt because “over a lifetime. I have a lower chance of dying in a car crash“. We wear it because “I’m less likely to die today.“
Strange, I wear the belt because I believe it may save me some day over my lifetime. I have very little concern for it happening this particular day. Or at least I used to. Its just SOP now.
The problem is that protecting children overzealously in the short term can make them more vulnerable in the long term. By attempting to protect them from every concievable risk, real or imagined, you risk preventing them from developing the defences that they will need later in life.
Traffic collisions and drowning are the major causes of death in children in developed countries; not childhood illness, as it was formerly, thanks largely to vaccination. Better road safety - that starts with _you_, car owners! - swimming lessons, and greater adult supervision when children are near water, are the most important things here, not surveillance.
When people do horrific things to children, it is almost never a stranger, but someone close to home, and again surveilling the child will not prevent that.
> Maybe its not perfect, but most parents would give everything they have if it meant saving their child's life or health, so spending a few hundred at the chance is a no-brainer.
Any price? What about a portion of your child's development and autonomy?
> Some of that might be true, but I can assure you, people _really do_ want to prevent harm to their children.
They do, and they should. But due to the fact that this really is a legitimate concern in society, and always will be, it is also an infinitely renewable source of discontent that sways public opinion towards pursuing policies and parenting methods that don't actually help or protect children. Nothing short of a total panopticon can prevent 100% of harm to children, if even that. Yet saying "we will have less visibility into the safety of children if we choose to do this instead" is seen in the current climate as one of the most distasteful things you can say. So people are afraid to speak up and find alternatives.
Anything short of absolute perfection in child safety is seen as an unacceptable failure that merits new barriers to autonomy to prevent the next failure. To preserve the autonomy of childhood, there has to be a middle ground.
"Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence."
And yet it is so endlessly frustrating what genuinely harmful, awful practices persist anyway.
> Being accused of hurting children is a social death sentence.
Not really. Dog owners hurt children all the time, we have zero problems blaming 3 years old for "provoking" an adult!
They were scared and acted in self defense!
Child deserved to go to hospital! Hopefully it learned valuable lesson to respect dog owners and treat them better!
And not just dog owners; car drivers are apparently invulnerable to criticism or shame as well. Big SUVs have been demonstrated to kill children; people buy them, they don't care. Driving fast has been demonstrated to kill children; people speed, they don't care. They think it will never happen to them, as they believe themselves to be Good People, and getting to their destination fast in their nice big car is important to them, and any attempt to curtail that an affront to their freedom.
And when they mow children down, as statistically some of them always will, it's then always described as "an accident", as though performed by some capricious god beyond all human control.
Exactly! Cars are not save around children! We should not take cars into schools, shopping malls, parks, playgrounds!
It's another mode of "anxiety farming". Under the "exploiting human psychology for profit" series.
Black mirror.
Kids now teens. We never had a tv. Only let them watch dvd on laptop. Never allowed them on tiktok. Never gave them surveillance watches (kiddyzoom). I also did not have whatsapp, or even carried my phone half of the time.
They hated us for it. Other parents called us crazy. “They should learn how to handle social media!” And now their kids are unmanageable and ours thank us for shielding them.
> “They should learn how to handle social media!”
They should learn how to handle reality before being inundated with an endless overwhelming deluge of unreality, outright bullshit, and lies. Kudos to you for giving them that chance.
https://wallhop.io/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026...
Childhood surveillance may become a very lucrative proving ground for new tech. The usual outrage about privacy doesn't apply here because of a combination of a very helicopter parenting-friendly society and a common understanding the even older children have zero latitude in making any choices for themselves and are owned by their parents and institutions, who can at any point choose to force them into any new schemes.
I think the next direction these surveillance companies are going to head into is even more invasive aggregation and processing. Instead of just giving parents a basic rundown of what's happening now, have phones record every spoken word and then mine it for sentiment analysis to reveal hidden thoughts and opinions. Schools could deploy software onto all students that tracks everything they say to each other on school property, which then could be used to build social graphs, identify misbehavior, rank social cohesion and obedience to understand which groups are good and bad influences - with all this data immediately provided to teachers and parents so they can take action. Once this is normalized, it will come for us all, just a bit more covertly.
Funny euphemism for child voyeurism.
There was a time when I liked having intricate data about things because it was interesting for me to learn about my own world. That rosy-eyed picture was polluted by surveillance capitalism, and it's gotten to the point where I'd often rather write things down on paper or in a markdown or yaml doc rather than use an tracker app, just because I know that my own hand-written data isn't one profile in a global data set used to squeeze value out of me.
Also, after reading the free part of the article, I propose the word "pramopticon".
Same, early 2000s I remember dreaming about having some wristband or something that would read all the "data" from my body and automatically know what's wrong and so on, even dreaming of being able to have "automatic journals" created from dreams and what not, my imagination was the limits, collect all the data, create miracles!
Then Snowden happened, and Cambridge Analytica, and Event X and everything else. Now I'm the same, all "family data" lives on harddrives that are physically in my home, I prefer paper notes over anything on my computer, for my journal at least, and my perspective is basically that secrets are impossible over the internet. If you want something secret, it cannot go through internet pipes even once.
Technically, the wristband dream isn't totally dead. Like you said, the real poison pill is internet access. As long as tech is physically walled off from bad actors who really really really want to take a look at it, it's not impossible. But as 'the future' comes for us all, the idea of computerized, but not connected devices becomes more of a pipe dream.
https://archive.is/opw0i
the article doesn't actually state what it is doing to children?
It touches on it a bunch of times, most of it falling under the umbrella of how constant surveillance does not teach kids how to be independent and capable of functioning on their own as an adult as well as they should be.
preparing them for the workplace and the surveillance they will face
My larger concern is that this constant surveillance is actually making children better prepared for the world they will have to live in as adults.
I find the the constant surveillance of our online, and increasingly of our offline, lives infuriating and push back when I can.
Twenty years from now perhaps it will all be accepted as perfectly normal, and I'll be an old man yelling at clouds.
Twenty years ago, the level of tracking we have today already would have seemed idiotic. But we've accepted it for convenience, not through choice but through the arms race of tech companies offering "free" services in exchange for convenience which in turn gives its users a temporary boost in their productivity.
I've come to the conclusion that it is primarily our instinct that drives this process and we cannot control it, except by refusing the tech altogether.
An individual refusing the tech simply disadvantages them against others and the state. Also, individuals who used to be railroaded by those who were more powerful gained the power to expose it with the advent of technology.
However, now that video editing is cheap and easy, perhaps the individual loses this advantage since one video recording might just be one version of the truth and you need more recorded angles/versions that prove consistency.
> An individual refusing the tech simply disadvantages them against others and the state. Also, individuals who used to be railroaded by those who were more powerful gained the power expose it with the advent of technology.
But how long will the advantage of that exposure last when technology envelops us all and we have no recourse?
My cousin still tracks her 23-year-old daughter's location - I thought that was bananas, but in this article there's a 29-year-old who's being tracked by her mother. WTF???
I'm younger than both of these people and WTF. I don't think I know anyone that is being tracked by their parents and I'm just wondering what kind of family dynamic causes this.
I've learned it's not that uncommon. Even letting friends track you. I remember a thread on X where people in NYC were posting their friend's real time location and saying things like 'I can always tell when she had a bad day' because her icon was at a particular juice bar. It does seem smart, especially for 20-somethings in major cities. But posting your friends location isn't terribly smart
It's a thing.
I, personally, don't think I've ever trusted anyone (parents included) enough to let them track me. I wouldn't feel safer. But maybe some people have good and healthy relationships with their parents (not that forcing your child to be tracked is healthy, but if your child chooses to have that safeguard...).
I don’t get how posting their location in this instance matters. Unless the friend has a stalker, is a famous celebrity, or is operating under some really unusual threat model, what risk is there in the whole world knowing some random 20-something is at a random juice bar in NYC? They aren’t being targeted, this isn’t a controversial location, etc.
well in my particular example it's a juicebar she frequents when she's had a bad day. So, she probably lives or works in the neighborhood. And a detail I didn't share was that she was attractive (her icon on the map was her headshot). So someone could get it in their head to approach the person and know what she looks like, where she might be, and believe she needs cheering up
And it's NYC which has all sorts of people, many of which you may not want to be approached by.
If the juicebar gets tagged, then the people working there may start interacting with the friend in a way she may not appreciate.
Sending out life specifics, even if your not famous or have a stalker can be detrimental. And, it wasn't the friend's choice either. So, the original poster may loose a friend in exchange for likes on X.
The thing that never makes sense about this threat model is she lives or works in this neighborhood, which in NYC is many thousands of people. They see her, they can approach her, they can follow her back to her apartment if they chose. To get to said juice bar, she’s likely walked past a dozen mentally ill homeless people and maybe ridden the subway, where you’re confined to a metal tube underground with NYC’s most interesting for minutes at a time.
But none of that registers as a risk: instead it’s a hypothetical X user who is so struck by a headshot on a map that they travel across the city on the off chance she’s still at the juice bar? That’s like worrying about being struck by a meteorite, but paying no attention to the risk of getting hit by a car.
If a friend is posting a person's location, they likely post other information about that person. The aggregate information could allow the assembly of a much more complete picture of a person than is possible by observing a person at a random juice bar.
For example: are they married? Do they live alone? Who are some of their friends? Where do they work? What do they do at work? Have they recently lost/found/experienced something interesting? These are the kinds of details that can enable social engineering in digital and physical spaces. It's likely easier to lure a person into a dangerous situation if you reference minute details from their personal life.
Sometimes the threat model is "has $10k in a bank account" or "is young & attractive" or "practices a religion I don't like" or "it's Tuesday."
It's not their data to share.
It's data entrusted to that specific person with the social contract to not share that data (assuming no permission for sharing was given). I would argue the same way if someone posted my full address online for example, you're breaking the social contract by sharing data I entrusted you with.
Perhaps they didn't tell their friend about that one abusive ex or an affair their having. Additionally in this case it is telling people that when this person is in a certain location they are having a bad day, possibly opening them up to harassment a scam or manipulation.
There are a lot of people that will use that information to their advantage, even if it is just for trolling.
For me, if I found out about a post like this I would stop any contact with the person effective immediately after informing them of not appreciating the post.
Shrug. My mom (70s) and I (40s) share location tracking. I think we’re as “developed” as we’re going to get. It’s just convenient.
I have nearly the exact same situation. I like being able to see when my mom is visiting my sister or some other place we used to go, and I like my mom being able to see what I'm up to, like when I visit museums or parks. Sometimes on a phone call she'll say "I saw you visited ...some place... so I looked it up online. Did you know ...something interesting about it...?"
Is it okay to track phones if you pay the bill? Want to be independent, they buy your phone and pay the bill. Is it okay to track you if you are driving a vehicle titled in my name and insured by me? Yes!
Can you give a justification for either of those things? Would you not let your older child be on your phone plan or drive your car under your insurance 20 years ago because both of these things weren't really trackable back then? If you would, what changed? I simply don't get what 'lesson' this is meant to impart on them.
First, I responded to examples of 23 and 29 year olds. Second, I pay for my adult children's phones and don't track their locations, but I would if they asked me. They have lost phones and mentioned that they should at least setup find-my-phone and give access to someone. I would let them track me, but I'm still using a flip phone.
Vehicle insurance and owner liability is a whole different topic. I prefer to have them hold title and therefore liability, even if I were to give them the money to purchase and insure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
It is going to be weird when the next generation of teenagers doesn’t rebel or break any rules at all
I doubt it’s so easy. More likely they’ll overtly break rules and violate norms with no sense of shame or embarrassment, like…(the future is now, just not evenly distributed)
doesnt really seem to be the case youth crime is down dramatically, like 80% compared to the 90s
Have we reached this Black Mirror dystopia yet?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5709250/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yef_HfQoBd8
Privacy is dead and it started in the cradle.
The thing is the parents normalizing this kind of intrusion of privacy think they are in the right while creating a very dangerous world. Even things like going through your kids rooms (yes even when they live at home) is a huge privacy violation.
No wonder the "but think of the kids" argument is so effective, we all grew up being propagandized by or own parents and environment.
Privacy feels like such an innate desire. Your mention of parents going through your room brought back a few negative emotions tied to a few memories, where my mom either came to me with something she found in my room, or walked into my room and went directly to where something was hidden and pulled it out (indicating that she had already been snooping in my room and found it). Thinking about it, I realized that's one of the reasons I started hiding things where my parents couldn't easily get to them, like in the rafters in the garage, or in various forts and hideouts I created in the neighborhood.
Now imagine your parents tracking you going into the garage every time or to specific hideouts.
Privacy is in my opinion one of the most important human rights that exist and the most frequently diminished or ignored, especially around parent/kid relations. Hence why it is a part of the UDHR (universal declaration of human rights).
With regards to kid/parent relation we are often too lenient as a society. One good measurement that you can keep in the back of your head to judge a kids invasion of privacy is the following question "If this kid was suffering from abusive parents, would this allow the parent to intervene the kid reaching out?".
Companies in this space have just become predatory and it's time to slap them with fines and regulations.
I find that violent and bad behavior is shifted to environments without surveillance with both children and parents. The verbal and physical abuse is not on camera and is amplified off camera. They know this, they just don't care.
I think the problem here is what are you supposed to do with very low probability really bad events. I.e. your kid being kidnapped or similar. The probability of this extremely low, but it is unimaginatively bad. Therefore any small thing you do that will reduce the chance of this happening may seem reasonable. It is not clear to me how to think about this rationally.
Part of the way to think about it is that you simply can't control such events. We never could and we never will. Trying to do so is a losing game for temporary psychological comfort only. I think the key is that the "small things" that you do are unlikely to actually reduce the probability in practice.
Stranger kidnapping is an extreme black swan, but there’s plenty of more realistic scenarios where tracking could mitigate a bad outcome. Kid gets off the school bus at the wrong stop: found in minutes. Kid is riding bike, falls and knocked out: found easily.
There’s a ton of rare, negative scenarios where risk reduction is so cheap and easy that you’re silly not to do it. Car accident deaths are about 1 in 100 million miles driven, you certainly can’t control other drivers, but not putting on a seatbelt is stupid.
That is true.