Global Breaking News - Friday, May 17, 2024

You Can Track Your Kids. But Should You?

When social networking apps enable rapists to prey on children, and bullying becomes more commonplace on Facebook, it’s understandable that parents want to know who their children are talking to online. Cue the software developers. According to a recent Times article, companies are marketing “new tools to track where children go online, who they meet there and what they do.” When does monitoring your children through technology cross the line into invasion of privacy? And if that line is crossed, is it excusable?

 기술을 통한 자식들의 감시가 언제 정도를 넘어 사생활의 침해가 되는가? 만약 침해가 되었다면 변명이 되는가?

1) It’s Modern Parental Involvement
One cannot compare reading a child’s journal to accessing his or her conversations online. The Internet is a different paradigm.
 
2) Surveillance Shouldn’t Replace Digital Literacy
Parents using monitoring tools should tell their children what they're doing and discuss with them the reasons behind the surveillance.
 
3) Safety Trumps Privacy
We must guide our children and protect them from all kinds of danger, including the dangers that exist online.
 
4) Kids Respond to Dialogue, Not Snooping
If children interpret monitoring as a sign of parental mistrust, they’re more likely to circumvent the monitoring.
 
5) It’s O.K. to Pry, Especially When They’re Young
But the only real answer to protecting children from harmful Internet content is to enlist their help in monitoring themselves.