My parents restricted my every move when I was young. It wasn’t just about a curfew; they timed how long it would take me to get home from school and expected me to be home by then. I was not allowed to go to the movies or to the mall like most kids. They were, of course, trying to keep me safe. And yet, ironically, it had the opposite effect. I was not a good teen. I lied, I snuck out of the house and I took risks: lots of risks. For many years, I felt super guilty about it: I sort of thought that this was a reflection on my moral character. And at this point, your respect for me may also have dropped a notch or two.
But here’s the thing: the more people I speak to, the more I learn that this is a common theme among my peers who had controlling and unyielding parents. I was an adolescent trying to figure out my identity and trying to fit in while pushing against parental authority. I couldn’t talk to my parents about anything because I was afraid of them. And any question’s answer was always no. I often wonder about where I would be if social media was around when I was young.
In Social LEADia, I referenced Henry Jenkins, danah boyd, and Mimi Ito (2015), who speak to the tendency in education to block and ban social media. They say, “blocking sites “actually perpetuates risk, as it ensures that many kids will be forced to confront online risks on their own”
So it was not at all surprising to me when I read a post called, “The Case Against Spying Against your Kids” by Angela Lashburg which talks about a Surveillance app many parents are using to keep track of what their kids are doing.
“The use of tracking apps can give a message to the child that they cannot be trusted to look out for themselves or to make responsible decisions,” says Tonya Rooney, an early childhood researcher at Australian Catholic University and editor of the book Surveillance Futures: Social and Ethical Implications of New Technologies for Children and Young People. “These are important skills for developing independence and confidence, skills that help guard against risks a child may encounter later in life.”
The post led me to a research paper (Ghosh, Badillo-Urquiola, Guha, LaViola, & Wisniewski 2018), Safety vs Surveillance: What Children Had to Say About Mobile Apps for parental control with excerpts from kids rating the device. You really need to read them. Here are a few that stood out to me:
“This app will cause trust issues with your kids. Ever since my dad installed this app, he and I have grown farther apart. If he doesn’t trust me enough to use my phone, then why should I trust him?” –One Star, SecureTeen Parental Control, 2015
“Seriously, if you love your kids at all, why don’t you try communicating with them instead of buying spyware. What’s wrong with you all? And you say we’re the generation with communication problems.” –One Star, SecureTeen Parental Control, 2016
“Fantastic. Now now my mom is stalking me. I have nothing to hide. You can always just ask to go through my phone. Too invasive and down right disrespectful. Thanks for the trust, mom.” –One Star, MamaBear Family Safety, 2014
Ouch.
I am careful not to pass judgement here (parenting is hard enough without casting judgement). There may be lots and lots of kids for whom this app (or one like this) may be necessary to truly keep them safe, especially if your child has given you much cause to worry or distrust them (although the more I looked into the app, the more, I fear the data collected is for sale).
There are, however, so many reasons NOT to engage in a surveillance app.
When I did research for my Masters project, I read a study by Wang and Zing (2018) based on 270 teens surveyed from the ages of 12 to 17. They found that ”parental involvement has greater direct influence on online risk than parental restriction”. Let me write that again,
parental involvement has greater direct influence on online risk that parental restriction.
So what might parental involvement look like? Janelle Burley Hoffman came up with this iPhone contract for her son, Gregory a few years ago, which still has relevance today. Also, check out my post about the Think Aloud strategy, and this one about Barbara Coloroso’s parenting styles which can apply to technology.
A healthy relationship which fosters communication is important if we want our children to become adults who can think critically.
Reference:
Ghosh, A. K., Badillo-Urquiola, K., Guha, S., LaViola Jr, J. J., & Wisniewski, P. J. (2018, April). Safety vs. surveillance: what children have to say about mobile apps for parental control. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. 124). ACM.
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