Should I spy on my kids? Not in the sense of snooping on their conversations you understand, or following them around - but when they're on the internet.
To those of us raised on George Orwell's classic 1984, the reflex might be a loud and immediate “No”.
Isn't that what Big Brother did to Orwell's anti hero Winston Smith, keeping tabs on his most intimate moments, prying into what should have been his private life?
Here's why this has become such an acute dilemma for me. My 10-year old daughter wants a new tablet for Christmas, and there's also something that she doesn't want - a “stalker” app (as she describes it) that would allow her Mom and me to track her online movements.
When she had her first computer last year, part of the deal was that it would come equipped with software allowing us – as concerned parents – to monitor her emails, apps and youtube viewing.
Now she's rebelling – and I'm truly in a quandry.
I certainly can't use my own childhood as a reference point. If I'd asked my parents for a machine that allowed me to talk to people on the other side of the world for free, send letters that arrived within seconds, and which contained more information than all the books in local library, they'd have had me sectioned.
Or at least banned me from watching Tomorrow's World before bedtime.
Spying on the kids in those days meant having a network of nosy neighbours who'd spot you on the way home from school, having a crafty fag upstairs on the bus.
I'm not nostalgic for that era. It wasn't better than now, just different. And infinitely less complicated.
These days kids grow up in surveillance society - there's CCTV on our high streets, cameras in sports stadia and any place of entertainment. Yet we still tell ourselves that there are some things which are beyond the reach of prying eyes, that there IS such a thing as privacy. Isn't that why so many people regard Edward Snowden as a hero?
What I'd like to do is allow my kids to use the web to its fullest potential. That means having the chance to play games with people they've never met, or posting pictures to their mates. Simple stuff that we now all take for granted.
But even if they can be trusted, who else is out there trying to take advantage of their innocence.
If hackers can get hold of hundreds of celebrities' private photos, who's to say they won't also be posting snaps of my daughter and her mates on some dodgy message board?
And is that person she's talking to on Minecraft really another 10-year old girl? Or some pervy middle aged bloke getting his weird kicks?
As parents we don't want to be Big Brother – or Big Mamma or Big Dadda come to that – we just want to make sure our kids aren't getting tangled in the Web.
Does it make a difference if our motive isn't to control, but protect? Or does it ultimately all amount to he same thing?
And if we don't allow kids to make their own mistakes, how will they ever learn how to behave responsibly on their own?
Questions, questions. Oh Mr Orwell, where are you when I need you?
To those of us raised on George Orwell's classic 1984, the reflex might be a loud and immediate “No”.
Isn't that what Big Brother did to Orwell's anti hero Winston Smith, keeping tabs on his most intimate moments, prying into what should have been his private life?
Here's why this has become such an acute dilemma for me. My 10-year old daughter wants a new tablet for Christmas, and there's also something that she doesn't want - a “stalker” app (as she describes it) that would allow her Mom and me to track her online movements.
When she had her first computer last year, part of the deal was that it would come equipped with software allowing us – as concerned parents – to monitor her emails, apps and youtube viewing.
Now she's rebelling – and I'm truly in a quandry.
I certainly can't use my own childhood as a reference point. If I'd asked my parents for a machine that allowed me to talk to people on the other side of the world for free, send letters that arrived within seconds, and which contained more information than all the books in local library, they'd have had me sectioned.
Or at least banned me from watching Tomorrow's World before bedtime.
Spying on the kids in those days meant having a network of nosy neighbours who'd spot you on the way home from school, having a crafty fag upstairs on the bus.
I'm not nostalgic for that era. It wasn't better than now, just different. And infinitely less complicated.
These days kids grow up in surveillance society - there's CCTV on our high streets, cameras in sports stadia and any place of entertainment. Yet we still tell ourselves that there are some things which are beyond the reach of prying eyes, that there IS such a thing as privacy. Isn't that why so many people regard Edward Snowden as a hero?
What I'd like to do is allow my kids to use the web to its fullest potential. That means having the chance to play games with people they've never met, or posting pictures to their mates. Simple stuff that we now all take for granted.
But even if they can be trusted, who else is out there trying to take advantage of their innocence.
If hackers can get hold of hundreds of celebrities' private photos, who's to say they won't also be posting snaps of my daughter and her mates on some dodgy message board?
And is that person she's talking to on Minecraft really another 10-year old girl? Or some pervy middle aged bloke getting his weird kicks?
As parents we don't want to be Big Brother – or Big Mamma or Big Dadda come to that – we just want to make sure our kids aren't getting tangled in the Web.
Does it make a difference if our motive isn't to control, but protect? Or does it ultimately all amount to he same thing?
And if we don't allow kids to make their own mistakes, how will they ever learn how to behave responsibly on their own?
Questions, questions. Oh Mr Orwell, where are you when I need you?
RSS Feed
