Anyone else who would be uncomfortable opting your child into location, behavior and health surveillance by the world's largest advertising company?
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Google releases smart watch for kids
401–410 of 809 posts
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#402Ugh, 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 subscribe to the "Taking Children Seriously" movement. My position is that there is no reason to track kids 100% of the times, however if the kids do not mind, I do not see why this can be a good watch.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous. Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. This topic is always so alarmist. I have kids and a spouse. We all have Find My and Location Sharing on our phones. I don't FrEaK oUt that my kids are going to die if I'm not tracking their every movement. But it's nice to glance at Find My app and see if the k…
I think the important part is whether the children are affected by the tracking. Is it a big deal if they don’t have service and you can’t Find them for a couple hours? Mine are grown now, but I’ve always told them: I’m not worried about where you are, I want to know where to go when something happens and you need a rescue. I want them to have the peace of mind that, if needed, the safety net is within reach. When I…
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Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#404Ugh, 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…
> This constant tracking of kids is unnecessary and dangerous. Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. This topic is always so alarmist. I have kids and a spouse. We all have Find My and Location Sharing on our phones. I don't FrEaK oUt that my kids are going to die if I'm not tracking their every movement. But it's nice to glance at Find My app and see if the k…
Good lord. As I recall, a big part of growing up was spending time and doing things my parents didn’t want me to do. The idea of them tracking me is super creepy, as is tracking one’s spouse for that matter.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your kids don't learn independence and how to be self sufficient. After all, the goal is to make your kids into self-sufficient adults who can survive and navigate a complex world without your help. Being over protective (which is a natural instinct) can lead to children being overly dependent and not learning to be (to put in the most HN way possible) generalist agents. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40519118
> Your kids don't learn independence and how to be self sufficient. Doesn't this depend on how the tracking is used, not on whether the tracking is present at all? My wife and I share our location with each other and I don't actually know if she uses my location at all. If she does, she doesn't mention it. I use it occasionally to get a sense for when to expect her back or to find her when we need to meet up for some…
> Doesn't this depend on how the tracking is used, not on whether the tracking is present at all?
Of course. I think most people would agree that this would be an implicit assumption not worth explicitly mentioning. Do you think that's non-obvious? To me it seems rather obvious since in the extreme case if you bought the device and never actually used any of the features (but still put it on your kid) then clearly it'd have no effect. There's clearly a lot of gray area in between.
But I think it is quite common for these types of devices to be significantly more desirable and predominantly used by those who intend to use it for persistent tracking. Because the value/utility is significantly lower for those that don't (we can agree that these factors are significantly related, right?).
From your specific example, I don't think anyone arguing against this type of device would be worried about that type of usage. My partner and I often share locations with one another, but honestly we often forget we shared it and end up literally asking instead lol. But my experience has been that we are the abnormal ones and others use the feature much more.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#406230 USD? Thanks, no, thanks )))
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#407Ugh, 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…
> Ugh, I threw up a little in my mouth just from the headline.
I agree with your entire comment. And apart from the parents that feel they need to watch their kids every move, what always astounds me is how little consideration is given to exactly what tech they slap around their kids' wrist.
"Oh, look it is Google, our familiar cozy uncle, so all is hunky-dory".
No, it is not! Google is an advertisement company. The biggest on the planet. Ads are their raison d'etre, core business. And learning as much as possible from your kid at the youngest age is part of their business model. Not to protect them, but to turn them into mindless consumers that click the most ads. And to use all that juicy data about your kids life in any other shady way they can think of, where some cold hard cash may end up on their balance sheet. It is ridiculous.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you feel like you “need” this, though? I think that’s exactly what GP is saying – not disagreeing that it might have utility, but that there is a cost associated as well. The world is just statistically not that scary, and it’s good to let our kids make mistakes and get lost and find their way and face adversity and survive. Me and my wife differ in our perspectives on this. She is more of a “safety at any cos…
Did we turn out great or did you turn out great? There are many cases where unsupervised use of the internet or getting lost did not turn out well at all. Why view someone opting into this (my entire family has "find my" enabled on our phones.) Where is the negative? Kids can still be free range while allowing for the parent to know where they are.
And we can also see ample evidence that overly controlling kids has a detrimental effect on them as they grow older.
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the important part is whether the children are affected by the tracking. Is it a big deal if they don’t have service and you can’t Find them for a couple hours? Mine are grown now, but I’ve always told them: I’m not worried about where you are, I want to know where to go when something happens and you need a rescue. I want them to have the peace of mind that, if needed, the safety net is within reach. When I…
> I think the important part is whether the children are affected by the tracking I have no reason to think they're impacted by me knowing where they are. They're confident, run around for hours, and are growing up just fine. So what if their parents can look up their location... big deal. Pushing the alarmist argument, though: should I just take away their cell phones, to give them the same experience I had growing…
> I have no reason to think they're impacted by me knowing where they are.
It's easy to have no reason to think something (especially when you don't want to), but that's not evidence it's false.
Why not just ask them?
Re: Google releases smart watch for kids
#410Earlier 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.
You will see that in rural Japan.