Why keeping an eye on your kids’ phones may be a good idea
Chicago: 26.06.2018 TOI
Ayrial Miller is annoyed. Her mother is sitting with her on the couch in their Chicago apartment, scrolling through the teen’s contacts on social media. “Who’s this?” asks Jennea Bivens, aka Mom. It’s a friend of a friend, Ayrial says, and they haven’t talked in a while. “Delete it,” her mom says. Yes, Bivens is one of “those moms,” she says. The type who walks into her daughter’s bedroom without knocking; the kind who tightly monitors her daughter’s phone. She makes no apology.
Nor should she, says a retired cybercrimes detective who spoke to her and other parents in at a school in Chicago. “There is no such thing as privacy for children,” Rich Wistocki told them.
Other tech experts might disagree. But even they worry about the secret digital lives many teens are leading, and the dreadful array of consequences — including harassment and occasional suicides — that can result.
Today’s kids are meeting strangers, some of them adults, on a variety of apps. Teens are storing risque photos in disguised vault apps, and then trading those photos like baseball cards. Some even have secret “burner” phones to avoid parental monitoring, or share passwords with friends who can post on their accounts when privileges are taken away.
David Coffey, a tech expert from Michigan, said he was floored when his two teens told him about some of the sneaky things their peers are doing. “I gotta hand it to their creativity, but it’s only enabled through technology,” says Coffey, chief digital officer at IDShield, a company that helps customers fend off identity theft.
Parents are clearly outmatched. Exposed to tablets and smartphones at an increasingly early age, kids are savvier about using them and easily share tips with friends. Parents, by contrast, are both overwhelmed and often naive about what kids can do with sophisticated devices, says Wistocki.
A 2016 Pew Research Center survey found that only about half of parents said they had ever checked their children’s phone calls and text messages or even friended their kids on social media. They were even less likely to use tools to monitor their teens or block certain apps. AP
BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
Chicago: 26.06.2018 TOI
Ayrial Miller is annoyed. Her mother is sitting with her on the couch in their Chicago apartment, scrolling through the teen’s contacts on social media. “Who’s this?” asks Jennea Bivens, aka Mom. It’s a friend of a friend, Ayrial says, and they haven’t talked in a while. “Delete it,” her mom says. Yes, Bivens is one of “those moms,” she says. The type who walks into her daughter’s bedroom without knocking; the kind who tightly monitors her daughter’s phone. She makes no apology.
Nor should she, says a retired cybercrimes detective who spoke to her and other parents in at a school in Chicago. “There is no such thing as privacy for children,” Rich Wistocki told them.
Other tech experts might disagree. But even they worry about the secret digital lives many teens are leading, and the dreadful array of consequences — including harassment and occasional suicides — that can result.
Today’s kids are meeting strangers, some of them adults, on a variety of apps. Teens are storing risque photos in disguised vault apps, and then trading those photos like baseball cards. Some even have secret “burner” phones to avoid parental monitoring, or share passwords with friends who can post on their accounts when privileges are taken away.
David Coffey, a tech expert from Michigan, said he was floored when his two teens told him about some of the sneaky things their peers are doing. “I gotta hand it to their creativity, but it’s only enabled through technology,” says Coffey, chief digital officer at IDShield, a company that helps customers fend off identity theft.
Parents are clearly outmatched. Exposed to tablets and smartphones at an increasingly early age, kids are savvier about using them and easily share tips with friends. Parents, by contrast, are both overwhelmed and often naive about what kids can do with sophisticated devices, says Wistocki.
A 2016 Pew Research Center survey found that only about half of parents said they had ever checked their children’s phone calls and text messages or even friended their kids on social media. They were even less likely to use tools to monitor their teens or block certain apps. AP
BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY
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