Scariest visual novel i ever played was about kids having their privacy personally violated (that is, not generic analytic data, but someone knowing that kid specifically was doing so and so) and just not caring about it.
Wow, that seems particularly odd to me. People don’t want their parents to know where they live? Sounds like they had a rough childhood more than a penchant for extreme privacy, but wtf do i know ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Lotta messed up famillies and its easier than ever to find online info on how to deal with narcissistic/dysfunctional family dynamics and get away from it.
I know it’s just some rag bait nonsense, but I know as a fact most teens would never want their parents to constantly know where they are and monitor them constantly.
I honestly feel like so much of the anxiety comes down to lack of stable and sufficient income + meaninful employment and also (maybe more so) bad living situations. Housing is wielded as an incredibly potent weapon against young people often by narcissistic and dysfunctional family(s) and its scary as fuck to face the spectre of homelessness or the prospect of having to adjust to the torrent of change it would entail. They shouldn’t have to worry about idiot monster parents and constantly having to deal with their housing being on the table/chopping block any time they disagree or set a boundary.
Gen-Xers are also guilty of letting corporate surveillance happen, thereby letting their children grow under the watchful eye of big data.
I never said my generation was virtuous. In fact, I blame people my age for not affording the next generation what they themselves got to enjoy. Just like we blamed our boomer parents for enjoying the good life after the war and leaving us the crumbs. Little did we know the ones after us would have it even harder.
this gen x'er isn't keen on the idea, either. before the days of cell phones, the street lights coming on was the cue it was time to go home--and we could go pretty much anywhere in our (small) town. and later as a teen when we lived close to a city, all mom wanted to know was whether i'd be home for supper. there was no worry because every 'horrible' thing to happen to a kid wasn't published or broadcast for the world to see.
Yeah but if you were a parent or if you are one. Would you do it? I could see doing it and just trying not to use it but man with some of the crazy kidnappings nowadays I would like to be able to find out where they are or at least have a last time and location for the police to work off of.
My 21yo soon wants to build out a van and take a chunk of time (6 months?) in between jobs and drive around the States. We’re talking over a year from now, but as the idea has come up in discussion I told him that I’d like to have some form of tracker set up. He’s good with it.
Garmin sell these beacon devices, which can be used to either check in with relatives, or to summon help to their location.
They’re expensive, and intended more for people heading into remote areas, but might give you both some peace of mind, without tracking his every move.
Yeah but if you were a parent or if you are one. Would you do it?
I am and I did not. Kids need to grow up without feeling they are being watched all the time. Or rather more accurately: kids need to grow up without being watched so they can sense when they are and take measures. Kids who grow up without any personal space don’t even realize they’re not free, and that’s a perfect recipe to create adults that accept tyrannical governments without question.
My kids grew up doing stuff they didn’t tell me about, and I didn’t know where they were half of the time. And yes, at times, I worried. But it was important to let them be.
the crazy kidnappings nowadays
I’ve heard people of all ages say that all my life. This is a well-know cognitive bias (i.e. “things were better in the past”) and it’s simply not true. I’m fairly certain our society is much safer today than it was in the past.
Yeah I should really have not used the term nowadays. Thing is that folks in the past could not do anything like this to mitigate it. They did not have the option. If you where in the position to need it you might find your decision to not utilize it to be endlessly horrible.
If you where in the position to need it you might find your decision to not utilize it to be endlessly horrible.
It was a choice. I chose to let them risk life and limb doing whatever stupid shit kids do behind their parents’ backs, risk being run over by a car or kidnapped as they walked to school. The risk was very small, and the benefits of letting them grow up with a normal, non-Orwellian childhood far outweighed them. Hell, my generation and those before me grew up like that and survived just fine.
But I agree: if something really bad had happened, I don’t know how I could have lived with myself. And this always weighed heavily on my mind whenever they were late to come home.
Yeah. The other thing is though that if you have a cell phone you are allowing all sorts of companies and maybe governments track you all over the place, but there is an issue with family? Sure they don't really care so maybe thats a thing but they don't care till they do which is really wierd. It feels sorta adult to recognize the tracking that is happening and not seeing it as a big deal for the right reasons family wise. Take the opposite. Elderly parents being tracked by adult children. It would be interesting if parents started allowing their children to track them at some age.
Nowadays the risk really is compounded, though: not by any of the actual dangers being worse, but instead by adding the new risk of busybodies calling CPS to report you for “neglect” for anything short of extreme helicopter-parenting.
You’re trading your own feelings for your kid’s long-term well-being and learning. Many people would take the easy approach because your way is “scary”. Bravery is doing what needs to be done even if you’re afraid.
I’d call that right and proper. It’s what we adults are supposed to do. The number of times I’ve carried a crying infant to get them settled down while I could barely walk from excruciating back pain… It’s our job to take that on.
It’s funny, many of those parents who are tracking their kids would probably say “I sacrifice every day by working long hours so my kids have a warm, safe home” without realizing that giving them a long leash is also a sacrifice of parent’s (willingly take on worry) so kids grow up well.
My sister had trackers in the trunk of all of her kids cars. She told them it was there, they never had a problem with it. The clear signal wasn’t mom and dad are watching you… it was “don’t get into mischief in your own car” lol
I actually think these apps are perfectly fine, I just think that you should have to request the location from the phone and then that request also alerts the kid.
I’ll paint a different picture for parents in this thread. Gen Z does not have adequate social spaces in which to exist. So when you say “hey I’m going to track you” it’s like oh cool, track me going where exactly? To basketball practice and back? Or to the mall so you can know which store I’m in?
Parents are gaining more and more control over their kids and I don’t think it’s good. They aren’t independent people. As a kid I hated having zero autonomy, it sucked. So all this is achieving is making kids feel like it’s less hassle to just stay at home and play video games.
Primarily it means these companies know where your kids are, and they are building a dB of locations and other info of the kid (likely including online activity via other ops on the phone, etc), starting tracking early.
Second, it’s a poor way to manage trust between parents and kids. I refuse to use it, and refuse to help anyone I know use it, and explain to them why.
If you don’t trust your kids, then work on resolving that issue. And before anyone says “I trust my kids but not other people”, well, you gonna go everywhere with them to protect them from other people, or teach them how to navigate life, and learn to develop their own independent judgement?
There are self-hostable tracking systems. One is in my queue to setup for family/friends. It’ll be configured so anyone in a circle can use it, but these people trust each other. We intend it for arrival/departure notifications more than anything.
In this thread: people not understanding sampling bias. Of course everyone here likes privacy, and had friends who think similarly. It’s a privacy themed community on a niche tech forum.
Speaking as GenZ (or Millennial, depends who you ask for the definition): fuuuuck that.
Speaking to the article specifically: I don’t trust a surveillance vendor to work honestly when surveying the acceptance of their surveillance tool. The article also fails to mention (if it does, it’s so brief I missed it) that the pressure some parents put on their kids to install and allow these kinds of spyware is immense. The kid having it on does not equate to the kid choosing to have it on.
It seems really pathetic to me when parents can't offer their teens privacy. I have a child and I want him to trust me. Invading privacy feels like it would have the opposite effect and create a very one-sided relationship. You can ask my mom how much she knows about me now and its considerably less than my boxing mates.
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