Don't Spy on Your Kids' Phones | Hacker News Reader

Don't Spy on Your Kids' Phones

theatlantic.com

32 pointsaarghh31 comments

My entire family has been geo-tracking each other since the early 2000's when my Dad got his hands on some early tech through his work.

Never once has it been used in a toxic or controlling way. It's great for peace of mind or figuring out when someone's getting home.

Controlling parents will be controlling with or without technology.

I agree. I have 5 kids. So did my parents (alhough tracking wasn't a thing then). Your family tracking you usually isn't the problem, it's social media and big brother. Hence why my teen/pre-teen kids don't have smartphones.

If I'm honest it's more a matter of me pushing my tinfoil-hat based agenda than anything.

but how do your kids get two day shipping with prime without asking for help if they don’t have personally identifying phone numbers?

how do they watch youtube in the car?

there are several gaps in your story.

Sharing location seems very different from the other things discussed in this article. Day-to-day it's convenient to have bi-directional location sharing amongst close family. It's also fairly simple to circumvent in the name of privacy (e.g. 'accidentally' leaving a phone somewhere or having two phones)

Reading texts? That's borderline abusive.

The texts part depends on your perspective. We share most accounts with my wife because we literally have no secrets and it makes life so much easier. We don't really text, but we also grab each other's phone quite often when it's closer than our own. Then again, we don't really use our phones a whole lot either, a battery charge lasts 4-5 days.

'We?'

That all sounds very odd.

> share most accounts with my wife because we literally have no secrets

I mean, I don't have secrets either, but if one of my friends from work wants to invite me bowling any scenario that doesn't involve us directly messaging each other seems just convoluted and weird.

Maybe as added context, we have been working together in the same company and team remotely since 2020. We also spend 90+% of the time together, so a scenario you are describing wouldn't happen. We did make separate email aliases as to not confuse other people though :)

I guess it all depends on how life is structured.

I mean, the article specifically talks about parent/child interactions, so I'm sure you appreciate my confusion.

Right. I was referring to the "family" aspect, trying to point out that having full transparency can be both good and bad, depending where you are coming from.

> Reading texts? That's borderline abusive.

Would you mind explaining why you think so? To me, reading someone's texts is impolite, but I cannot comprehend why it would be in the same category of misdeeds as physical beatings or sexual abuse.

Abuse is a very broad category, for example neglect and emotional abuse are still abuse.

> Reading texts? That's borderline abusive.

I’ve noticed a trend of people using increasingly dramatic language. Words like “abuse” and “harm” are being tossed around to describe conduct that really deserves blander words.

I’ve also noticed a kind of social feedback loop happening, where people hear these exaggerations and then come to believe they are victims of “abuse” when, really, someone was just rude.

Anyway, I don’t think reading your kid’s texts qualifies as borderline abuse. I’d reach for a word like “strict” or perhaps “overbearing”.

This is kind of meta, but you're taking issue with the descriptive term I've used and implicitly dismissing the possibility that we simply disagree on the severity of the transgression.

If I said a 63 degree room was freezing. That would be an exaggeration and misuse of the term and you'd be objectively correct in pointing that out. But in the case of how severe the transgression is - we can only use descriptive terms as it's not quantifiable.

I think it's far worse than rude and is controlling in an abusive manner. Reasonable people can disagree on that and we likely do. But, declaring that on I must be misusing the word seems like a distraction from that.

> implicitly dismissing the possibility that we simply disagree on the severity of the transgression

I do think we disagree, and very fundamentally. I wouldn’t personally characterize this even as a “transgression”, much less abuse. Depending on the kid’s age, I’d even call it responsible parenting!

Nevertheless, I doubt you believe monitoring your children’s texts is truly adjacent to burning them with cigarettes, molesting them, humiliating and calling them names, and so on. This is what “abuse” used to mean.

My pet theory is that this escalation in language has been part of a social feedback loop, where people have become more sensitized and less able to cope with relatively minor nuisances.

One look at the dirty dancing on TikTok and I can understand parents concern for what their kids consume.

I'm sorry, but you're still tracking your 19 year old and calling them if they don't seem to be in class? They're an adult. If they haven't learned how to be responsible by now, then it's time you let them learn, possibly the hard way.

Having tracking capability in an emergency could be good. But my God, when do you expect them to be a fully functioning human if not by 19?

You’re right, but I bet there’s a sorta defensible position by the parent—they’re footing a massive college education bill so their kid doesn’t go into debt.

Nope, still not a reason. The way you handle it, is you have the kid take out the loan. Then you pay off the amount if the semester was successfully completed. This provides them freedom and autonomy to learn and be responsible. It also provides them with credit history.

Usually universities mandate a "parental contribution" - but the idea of having the student borrow the money and immediately pay it back is interesting.

I wonder if the student would be able to get such a loan?

At least what I've seen in the US, there's no requirement for a parental contribution. There are some loans that require disclosure of parental assets to determine eligibility.

I understand the need to build trust with your children by respecting their privacy, but this is poorly confusing monitoring and supervision with spying.

I'll definitely be monitoring my son's use of electronic devices when he's a child, but a 19 year old is not a child...

That's the government's job!

My teen shares her location with all her friends, so I feel it’s fine for parents.

Sure makes pickup from games easier, it’s a River Run school not River Bend school, etc!

https://archive.ph/Krbkr

Once neuralink gets its tech working, theatlantic will write "don't spy on your kids' thoughts".

> Once neuralink gets its tech working

Once neuralink gets its tech working, the Atlantic journal will have not existed for nearly 1000 years already.

And Truly Full Self-Driving (TM) will be coming next quarter.

You shall manage your children's devices with the methods approved by Apple and Google. Any other software is malware, and will be flagged and revoked.

Personally I'm more worried about corporations spying on the kids than the parents knowing where they are and what they're doing.

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