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Google releases smart watch for kids

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Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#561

Post by mklepaczewski »

iiio8 wrote: post #463
mklepaczewski wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generations of kids survived without their parents needing to know their location at all times. Did they? The problem with this sort of claim is that it often turns out to be false. "We didn't have X and somehow we survived" often omits the fact that mortality in given demographics has dropped significantly since then. The people making this statement are survivors, and the ones who haven't survived don't speak up.…

The proof obligation is the other way around. You need to show that constant surveillance actually makes a difference, on a population level. Otherwise your claim is the empty one.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Injury-death-rates-for-c...

Unfortunately, I only had time to do a quick search, but it shows that mortality has dropped significantly in the last 20 years. I imagine it was only higher 40-60 years ago. This doesn't prove that more surveillance brings mortality down, but it shows that the "we survived just fine" argument is shaky at best.

I think parental supervision correlates with the survivability of offspring in general, not only in the human species. Also, the more present and engaged parents are, the better the children are. This is supported by research on children raised by single parents, parents working multiple jobs and shifts.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#562

Post by kelnos »

XorNot wrote: post #276
tdeck wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope this question doesn't offend, but have you taught your son what to do when he gets lost? Explicitly teaching and practicing strategies like this can help a lot. I was always taught to 1) stay where you are, not try to walk around and 2) approach someone who works at the store and tell them you're lost, your name, and your parents name. I also memorized my address and home phone number. Obviously that doesn't w…

This logic moves right into victim blaming territory real quick though. "Have you taught your child what to do if they get lost?" doesn't fix the fact that you don't know what they'll do till it happens, and then it might be too late. I'd much rather have a backup system in case they don't do the right thing in case they panic. I'll also point out that your advice here is statistically unsound: there's the baked in "…

> This logic moves right into victim blaming territory real quick though. "Have you taught your child what to do if they get lost?" doesn't fix the fact that you don't know what they'll do till it happens, and then it might be too late.

I think that's a bit of an uncharitable take. If the commenter upthread hasn't sat down with their kid and talked through a plan for if the kid gets lost (including having them memorize names, phone numbers, and addresses), then that's negligent on the part of the parent. But no one is saying "if you've done this, it will work 100% of the time, perfectly, and you'll never have anything to worry about".

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#563

Post by beretguy »

khazhoux wrote: post #316
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…

> 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…

> it's nice to glance at Find My app and see if the kids are still hanging out at Starbucks or they got to school on time. […] I can see if my wife's still at Whole Foods and send her a message to pick up baru nuts.

That’s creepy.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#564

Post by kelnos »

GuB-42 wrote: post #336
godelski wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 to…

> It can be used for constant, intrusive monitoring, or it can be used for emergencies only.

When the child is very young, this is maybe (maybe) fine, but as the child gets older -- likely before their teen years -- there's really no difference between the two from the kid's perspective. They know that, regardless of their parents' stated intentions (the latter, hopefully), they are just a few taps away from knowing the kid is not quite exactly where they're supposed to be. It's stifling.

I frankly feel so lucky that I grew up when I did, in the 80s and 90s, when technology was just starting to get really cool, but not quite into this dystopian panopticon 1984 nightmare that we seem to be getting into today.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#565

Post by sambazi »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #472
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My watch changed my relationship with my phone very positively, so I offered to get my kids watches as a phone alternative. Not that they couldn't have phones at all, but they'd leave them at home when going on, and not carry them in their pockets around the house. They declined because they think watches are lame and nerdy. Only the most unfortunate kids get watches. They still can't carry them around the house, but…

There's a fix to the "nerdiness" issue: Have the kids pick awesome bands or band/frame combinations from AliExpress. (They're about $5-20 rather than $60-200.) There are plenty out there to transform a watch to look nothing like an Apple or Samsung watch, and look nothing like anyone else's watch.

the aesthetic and authoritative effects of wrist watches cannot be understated

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#566

Post by sambazi »

geraldwhen wrote: post #321
wmf wrote: post #3

Smartwatches may be an overlooked answer to the kid phone conundrum. Watches have the communication and location tracking that parents demand without the distraction of phones.

I can’t get reliable signal on the watch on any carrier. And reliable signal is a deal breaker.

there are meta sim-card that connect to any carrier, pricy though

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#567

Post by kelnos »

iteria wrote: post #199
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For better or for worse the ship has definitely sailed on the laissez-faire "be home before sunset" parenting of past generations. It's only "sailed" because (some) parents demand to know where their kid is at all times. While I think it's difficult for any individual parent to, say, forbid social media for too long lest they ostracize their kid, saying "I won't track my kids" is a choice any parent can make. I jus…

It's a choice a parent can make until someone calls the cops because your kid is unattended. I've had people give me you're an awful parent side eyes for not keeping my eyes on my kid 100% of the time in a fenced in park. Letting my kid walk to school like I did as a kid is just forever outside of my reach if I want to not have CPS called on me. At least if I geotag my kid with someone obvious people will be chill ab…

> It's a choice a parent can make until someone calls the cops because your kid is unattended.

Since an unattended kid doesn't automatically advertise "I'm being tracked so it's ok!", the cops will likely get called regardless.

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#568

Post by 4ggr0 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #361
quaintdev wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then when they finally break free they don't have any feedback mechanism that they had since childhood. This can go both ways. They might turn out to be model citizen or your worst nightmare. People raised children for 1000s of years without any technology. I bet we can do that too.

> People raised children for 1000s of years without any technology. I bet we can do that too. I love these comments. So, no vaccines for you and your kids, right?

> So, no vaccines for you and your kids, right?

Depending on the person, the answer you expect might not be the actual answer you get...

Re: Google releases smart watch for kids

#570

Post by kelnos »

dvhh wrote: post #282
iteria wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a choice a parent can make until someone calls the cops because your kid is unattended. I've had people give me you're an awful parent side eyes for not keeping my eyes on my kid 100% of the time in a fenced in park. Letting my kid walk to school like I did as a kid is just forever outside of my reach if I want to not have CPS called on me. At least if I geotag my kid with someone obvious people will be chill ab…

Exactly,I feel that some parents will be judged by their peers if they are not keeping a short leash on their children. And because people are encouraged to look at any sign of child neglect (for some reason), dirty clothes or bruise that could be acquired during play, could be easily misconstrued as child abuse.

It's interesting that some parents seem to be more worried about what their peers think about them, than about giving their child the opportunity to grow to be well-adjusted and independent.
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