Isn't teenager life about trying to figure out new social rules and making new relations? Anyway. . .

You gave figures about how parents were the major molesters --- but what about the other way round? Do you have any idea of the proportion of control-freak parents that are molesters (trying to avoid the information to leak through a friend)? Maybe this technology will help finding the molesters indeed, but from the client database.

I definitely agree. There is far too much fear-mongering over technology that people don't understand and far too much of the "think of the children!" mentality.

Oh and by the way, congrats! the Great Firewall of China has blocked you. I needed a proxy to post this comment from the mainland.

Though most parents aren't molesters. You might as well argue that electronically tagging men is a good idea because a tiny minority are rapists and that the risk of letting men roam around freely is too great to take. On balance, I agree with Danah - strong family relationships are crucial. But parents also have a responsibility to understand this technology, not to let their engagement of it be dictated by the media and scare stories. Only then will they have a chance to realistically education their kids how to deal with it.

Sigh.

Agree with this in regards to the teens. 13+ is the time to experiment with adulthood & responsibility & communication.

In my mind we need to start seperating "youth"-- teens and anyone under the 13 mark. Why? Because I keep reading about the next big marketing trend-- tweens & kids (younger than 12) having cell phones. I'm all about technology & the future... but I'm having a mental block when it comes to 9 year olds having cell phones. That's a whole other conversation about responsibility: who is the adult, who is the kid, and why is the kid being put in the position of being their own adult?

Anyway, personally (and forgive me if you disagree), I think any parent of a cellphone-toting U12 child has all rights to "stalk" their child's phone use. Parents have to take responsibility-- and i'd rather them keeping an eye on their confused, pre-pubescent child's cell phone use then let the kid go willy nilly at the age of 8 with a cell phone. However, I still can't help but ask, why does a child under the age of 12 need a cell phone of their own to begin with?

Thanks mightily. :)

Well, I think that this is another point of no return in which every one is supposed to be mad or crazy. I agree with you about the main offender are the parents and as a father of two I'm not going to give them a mobil phone because it's false that if they have one we'll know more about what are they doing or where are.
And also why we are always linking tech with delinquency, that one was there before, isn't it?

Sorry for my poor english

"technology does not solve relationship issues"

Amen.

No kid will like to be monitored by their parents,invariable of the kids who are not doing anything wrong and the kids who are hiding something from parents..So fear could sell but it cannot yield respect..
Breakdown Insurance

spammers save the day, again. Just like on myspace.

I'm a great fan of this blog and often find your views enlightening considering my conservative view points but am appalled by this particular entry. For one calling the parent "the number 1 child molester" is down right horrible, no matter what metaphor you are supposedly implying.

Now, I do believe that there are over bearing parents out there who could with any other technology exploit it's power. But, what so many seem to be forgetting is that the motivation behind this is love. While it may not be the right thing (mending relationships and building trust) to do it's intentions are well met. This company is selling "peace of mind" for parents who are being bombarded with the evils broadcasted daily in the news.

Ryan,
It's not well said in the article but most child molestation is done by close family members and family friends. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and the parent's close friends. Children are most often abused by people they already know and trust, not strangers.

Didn't find anything on our lame friend? A few seconds of google says he's the CEO of eAgency (.com) which makes some other random stuff in addition to the privacy invading sort.

Parents by blood are very unlikely molesters. When a parent molests, it's usually a man birth mother meets after birth of child. This is not often printed in media, for political correctness reasons. Uncles and other blood relatives do molest, so I am not saying the blood tie is absolute.

As to the cell phone surveillance, It does provide some comfort to parents, for the rare case when a child is snatched. It will not help monitor when you kid is naughty, because they will realize very quickly they need to turn the phone off. It's probably not worth the effort and family strain, but I might feel differently if I was a parent.

No, I don't quite see the problem with this. My son will have a lot of opportunities for communication that I didn't have, and in that special manner that he may feel anonymous and safe when he probably isn't.

He's not two yet. But my plan is, rather than restricting him from these new technologies like cell phones and net access, I will let him have unrestricted, but somewhat monitored access - and I won't hide it from him, of course. For that matter, he could see my logs as well! Not contents of communication, unless we tell explicitly, but who? Definitively.

Blasting this because it does not solve the problems of abusing relatives... well, that's not the problem this was supposed to solve. It was supposed to give children freedom, but accountability.