Child-monitoring apps might need a reboot
This article explores the limitations and potential backfiring effects of child-monitoring apps in the digital age. It suggests that parents should prioritize trust and open communication over invasive surveillance to keep children safe online.
Why it matters
As digital harms like sextortion and cyberbullying rise, parents are increasingly turning to tech solutions that may inadvertently damage the parent-child relationship.
Monitoring apps promise to keep young people safer online, but looking in on kids’ phones can backfire. Online safety experts say there’s a better way.
Pam Wisniewski’s digital adolescence showed her the best and the worst of the internet. At 14, she left an abusive home, where she’d been isolated in a fifth-wheel trailer at the end of a seven-mile dirt road. She moved in with her older sister and taught herself to type on AOL Instant Messenger. Online, she sought out the support and the community she’d lacked at home. She also discovered how thin the ice can be. “I sent my address to some guy in New Mexico to send me a mug with my name on it,” she recalls. “And then I found a news story like five, 10 years later that he killed somebody.”
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