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Google releases smart watch for kids

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Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#541

Post by kelnos »

handity wrote: post #513
khazhoux wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 find it difficult to imagine ubiquitous surveillance not shaping behavior and thought. I was born in the mid 90s and remember some of my friends getting flip phones in the early 2000s. One friend was given a phone that would report its location to their parents, presumably through some web-portal. I vaguely remember the conversation where my friend told me about this phone and the location tracking, and I remember…

> I find it difficult to imagine ubiquitous surveillance not shaping behavior and thought.

I wish more people in these threads would think about this and understand this point.

In an imaginary world where tracking tech isn't available, and it's feasible and affordable to do so, I worry that some of these parents would hire someone to follow their child around all day. Any parent who thinks that's absurd should agree that device tracking is similarly crazy. (And any parent who actually would make that hire... wow, I just don't know what to say, other than that I feel sorry for your children.)

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#542

Post by bagels »

scotty79 wrote: post #479
elaborate4013 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The average small child can't say what Dad's phone number is, or even his full name. Young kids have really limited awareness of their surroundings, and can get lost very easily. Add multiple kids into the mix and it can be a real challenge to keep them all together when you're out. I grew up memorizing my dad's number and was told to go find a trusted adult, stranger danger, etc. There was only one time I needed t…

Aren't phone numbers longer than they used to be?

Yes, in 1920 they were shorter.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#543

Post by kelnos »

khazhoux wrote: post #416
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

We’ve talked about it. They don’t care.

I either a) find that very hard to believe, or b) am horrified at the environment children are growing up in these days that the prospect of 24/7 parental location tracking is something they'd agree to without question.

I do wonder how they will feel after the first time you ask them, "Hey, why were you at place X, I thought you told me you would be at place Y?" (even if there's an innocent, reasonable explanation). Sometimes kids don't recognize the negatives to agreeing to something until they experience them.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#544

Post by bagels »

l33t7332273 wrote: post #490
vasco wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your no nonsense suggestions aren't appreciated, we like sending our kids locations to the NSA in real time here.

Is there any reason to suspect that tracking apps like find my are correlated with government surveillance?

Yes. The NSA is collecting any data it can get access to.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#545

Post by hgomersall »

partiallypro wrote: post #353
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #106

Ugh, 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…

Seems to me that such devices could actually help give kids -more- freedom. Let's not act like kids are outside playing like they were in the 80s/90s. Helicopter parents sort of ruined that (along with neighborhoods no longer being bikeable/walkable.) So, this kinda seems like a device that could give kids a longer leash. Parents can know they are safe/where they are while also giving the kid more freedom to just be…

Except it doesn't in any way deal with the actual real danger in our neighbourhoods, the one that keeps me awake at night, of cars.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#546

Post by [deleted] »

kelnos wrote: post #527
donw wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair: the only reason I want trackers for my kids is so that I can find them if (a) they run off and get lost; or, (b) they get nabbed. The average small child can't say what Dad's phone number is, or even his full name. Young kids have really limited awareness of their surroundings, and can get lost very easily. Add multiple kids into the mix and it can be a real challenge to keep them all together when you're…

> The average small child can't say what Dad's phone number is, or even his full name Is that really true? I guess I'm not sure what the age cutoff for "small child" is. I was at Disneyland with my seven-year-old nephew recently, and he was able to immediately and without hesitation recite both his mother's and father's phone numbers. Incidentally, I still remember the phone number of the house my family moved out of…

[deleted]

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#547

Post by ben_w »

elaborate4013 wrote: post #454
donw wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair: the only reason I want trackers for my kids is so that I can find them if (a) they run off and get lost; or, (b) they get nabbed. The average small child can't say what Dad's phone number is, or even his full name. Young kids have really limited awareness of their surroundings, and can get lost very easily. Add multiple kids into the mix and it can be a real challenge to keep them all together when you're…

> The average small child can't say what Dad's phone number is, or even his full name. Young kids have really limited awareness of their surroundings, and can get lost very easily. Add multiple kids into the mix and it can be a real challenge to keep them all together when you're out. I grew up memorizing my dad's number and was told to go find a trusted adult, stranger danger, etc. There was only one time I needed t…

When I was a kid, my parent's phone number was 6 digits long. You can memorise 11 digits of course, I did this aged 10 with digits of π, but also I'm a nerd.

One of my memories was losing track of where my mum was when we went shopping. She was right behind me, but 5-6 year old me panicked and ran out of the main doors.

There was a school trip to teach us personal safety issues (not sure the age, I'm going to say 11 with low confidence), and one of the tasks was (to the entire group) "Go along this corridor to meet the policeman, Officer FooBar"; we went along the corridor, someone not in uniform asked us where we were going, one of the group said "to meet Officer FooBar", and this un-uniformed person said "I'm Officer FooBar, wait in this room". Then he left and the real Officer FooBar came in and asked us to explain the situation, and that we'd been fooled because we'd volunteered too much information. (The fake Officer FooBar was also an officer, but one who was pretending to be a Bad Man™ who was pretending to be an officer).

The UK school system, at the time I went through it, the year before you finished you were sent to a "trident work experience" thing for a week (I think to keep them out of the way of those doing exams) — mine was to be a teaching assistant in a primary school. The kids all called me "Mrs Ben" because to them "Mrs" was the title given to all teachers and they didn't get the difference between family names and given names.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#548

Post by Peanuts99 »

NullPrefix wrote: post #221
forgotusername6 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I met a guy who didn't wear his seatbelt. He was a delivery driver and in a collision at 20mph. His head went through the windscreen and it scalped him from the eyes up. He had a scar all the way across from ear to ear. He couldn't shut his eyes for months. He wears his seatbelt now.

So? Obesity is a way worse toll on the human body than a scarred face, but we don't issue fines for people who enter McD's Other people have their own bodies and they do not belong to you

One of the primary aims of seatbelts are to stop you becoming a projectile and protect other occupants of your car and people outside it. It's not just a personal choice.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#549

Post by kelnos »

stickfigure wrote: post #193
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #106

Ugh, 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…

> I lost him on a ski slope once over a year ago and I think he's still traumatized

I wonder if that has more to do with how you reacted to the situation when you found him, than what he felt while he was lost.

> I can only guess you (and most of the other naysayers in this thread) don't have young children.

Ah yes, this old saw. As if none of us remember what it was like to be a kid. As if none of us remembers getting separated from our parents and lost for a short time, and how that felt.

> This isn't for teenagers. It's for kids that are still attached to mama/papa.

Conditioning a small child to become used to pervasive real-time tracking won't just go away if you stop tracking once they're teenagers. And regardless, I'm sure there are plenty of parents of teens today who force their kids to turn on location sharing on their phones.

> It's not necessarily even for everyday. But field trips, amusement parks, big crowded events, hell even shopping malls? I remember many times as a kid having my parents call out on the PA system when I got lost in a department store.

So you do remember what it was like to get lost as a kid! Did becoming lost in a department store a bunch of times traumatize you? While that's not the same as getting lost on a ski slope, it's not that different.

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