So what are they doing with the movement data? Is it tied to a shadow profile for ad targeting?
Google releases smart watch for kids
331–340 of 809 posts
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
Learning how to deal with anxiety in limited doses is an important part of childhood too. > If anything this gives kids more freedom I hope you're not too optimistic there. If it lets kids roam around outside more, than the upsides massively outweigh the downsides. But that's a very big "if".
I am speaking from experience as a father of two. The watch teaches the kids to reach out when they feel overwhelmed. They are fully in control of their own destiny. They don't always end up where they planned they were going and that is perfectly ok for me because they can reach me if there is an issue.
I will note that a way to reach out does not need to involve location tracking capabilities.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. or they don't hail from a culture where helicopter parenting has become the norm. Here in Germany tracking your kids like this would be widely seen as completely bizarre. There's a great Japanese TV show, called Old Enough , (that has been running for 30 years, long before smartphones existed), where kids as young as 2 a…
The show only exists because the parents accept that their kid is safe due to the camera crew. There's a reason they don't just strap a gopro to the 2 year old and plop them on a bus, and you will not see 2-4 year olds by themselves in Japan, or almost any nation.
Sure, the tiniest kids are on the show because it's funny and adorable but it doesn't really change the general point. I've lived in Tokyo and you see elementary school aged kids 6, 7 years old alone all the damn time. When I was in elementary school I was off on my bike every day. This is normal in much of the world. And there weren't any trackers. And that's actually important, because being on your own without the safety net is what builds confidence.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
The show only exists because the parents accept that their kid is safe due to the camera crew. There's a reason they don't just strap a gopro to the 2 year old and plop them on a bus, and you will not see 2-4 year olds by themselves in Japan, or almost any nation.
Sure, the tiniest kids are on the show because it's funny and adorable but it doesn't really change the general point. I've lived in Tokyo and you see elementary school aged kids 6, 7 years old alone all the damn time. When I was in elementary school I was off on my bike every day. This is normal in much of the world. And there weren't any trackers. And that's actually important, because being on your own without the…
Okay, and if American parents are too afraid to let their children do this, isn't a tracker watch a good thing, because it will open them up to the possibility of letting their kids go out without them?
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#335Ugh, I threw up a little in my mouth just from the headline. This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous. Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. And yes, I totally admit, some kids (very few actually depending on the locale) didn't survive. But we've traded this false sense of "safety" for kids that are so risk averse it is seriously negatively…
I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. My wife and I have been looking for something exactly like this for our 6yo. I lost him on a ski slope once over a year ago and I think he's still traumatized. He recently was afraid of going on a class trip because he was afraid of getting lost. This isn't for teenagers. It's for kids that are still attached to mama/papa…
Give your kid a hurricane whistle on a lanyard. You'll never not know where they are.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it can be seen the other way. Tracking can give kids more freedom, because you can let them roam where they could get lost. For example, you can take them on vacation in a safe but unfamiliar place and let them do as they want. If they get lost, just use the tracker to find them. You don't even need to go for them immediately, you can let them try to figure it out by themselves and only go if it becomes really pr…
As a kid my parents put me in Boy Scouts. Guess what was a frequent occurrence? Sending pairs of kids out to go do tasks like collecting firewood. Every once in awhile kids would get "lost" (not know where they are but not actually far away or in any reasonable danger). This even happened to me more than once. But being lost and figuring it out was necessary to learn the skills of how to navigate. today I have a very…
Boy scouts can afford to lose kids because there is a group of people who know the place very well and are trained to deal with such a situation. Which is I think not only common but expected.
A tracker can reproduce this experience without the help of an boy scout camp. It is just about how the tracker is used. It can be used for constant, intrusive monitoring, or it can be used for emergencies only. It is just a tool, it also doesn't have to be used 24/7.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#337[deleted]
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#338$230 device, plus $10/mo, and that is per kid. At what age does Google think kids are responsible enough to be given such a device?
It's not up to Google. It's up to parents. The point of this product is to give parents an option other than a phone, which I assume you would believe to be worse (in cost and what it enables).
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#339[deleted]
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. My wife and I have been looking for something exactly like this for our 6yo. I lost him on a ski slope once over a year ago and I think he's still traumatized. He recently was afraid of going on a class trip because he was afraid of getting lost. This isn't for teenagers. It's for kids that are still attached to mama/papa…
>I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children. or they don't hail from a culture where helicopter parenting has become the norm. Here in Germany tracking your kids like this would be widely seen as completely bizarre. There's a great Japanese TV show, called Old Enough , (that has been running for 30 years, long before smartphones existed), where kids as young as 2 a…
Japan gets to have free-range children because they have functional public transit. We don't, so we don't.
For what it's worth I'd also point out that the last time I was in Japan all the train stations had ads for transit cards for kids that e-mailed parents whenever they were used. This is functionally identical to American helicopter parenting, IMO.