Comment by nanobyte
4 years ago
One would be wise to heed p1necone's comment. Based on friends and general life experience, this is 100% the case. I cannot even fathom growing up with parents having such oversight--that's basically a guaranteed recipe for stunted personal growth and/or subversion and lifelong distrust; not to mention an extreme invasion of privacy.
What happens if one's kid's are gay? Or interested in myriad other topics? Should a parent have 100% visibility and supervision over such things?
I do think there is some room for parental control apps, at least at a very young age (I see little reason someone under 13ish should be able to view porn).
But... they need to have their limits. A parent should not know every single thing going on with their child. Especially as their child is figuring out their own identity and later transitioning into adulthood.
I know there was once (yay landlines) that I caught my parents listening in on a call I was on... It broke my trust with them completely. I no longer felt safety from my own parents, to be honest it made me feel like a hostage in my young brain. From then on I did everything in my power to hide things further from them (and being very technical this was not hard).
You need your child to feel comfortable enough to come to you when they need something, not for you to come to them because you saw something that should have been private.
Basic child blocks? Thats fine up to a certain age
Time limits? Of course, that is your prerogative.
But knowing every single thing that is done on what should be a very personal device... that is problematic.