kids today will also remember in 30yrs from now how's they had so much freedom... they just had to leave their watch (btw, apple have had kid mode on their watches for a while now) in the school locker and they could roam around, heck maybe even get an uber to some place

They’ll have to leave the phone too

Such a good, unintended consequence !

Don't worry, if it doesn't have it then I'm sure a future model of this watch will have a "I'm not on a wrist" logging/alerting function.

So the kids need to figure out that in order to do this kind of thing they need to attach their watch to some less-cool kid's wrist that stays at school while they do the fun things. At least that less-cool kid hopefully gets some kind of reimbursement for offering that service.

Some enterprising 13 year old is developing WaaS (wrists as a service) right now.

If you worry about your parent knowing your exact location, then maybe it’s not a healthy parent-child relationship to begin with.

They don’t have to sit at school, and they can wander around, without telling me — but if there is a serious trouble then it’s in everyone’s interest to have a up to date location data.

> If you worry about your parent knowing your exact location, then maybe it’s not a healthy parent-child relationship to begin with.

Are you kidding me? I remember being a teenager in the 90s. I had a great relationship with my parents (not perfect, of course, but who does?), and I absolutely would not have wanted them to have my exact location on-demand. I didn't get up to all that much that they didn't want me to do, but being tracked would mean I would not have done those things, and would have missed out on valuable experiences, because I would have been afraid that they'd randomly check up on me when I was in a place I wasn't supposed to be. (And no, I'm not talking about drinking or drugs or anything like that.)

"Google Fit isn't reporting your heart rate in the last 5 minutes and your accelerometer isn't detecting any movement so I called 911 to check on you since you likely had a heart attack".

“Tracking” is a scare word. The ability to see where my spouse is, when needed, without having to call or send a text, is a convenience. There’s nothing wrong with not sharing your location with your spouse if you don’t want to, but there’s also nothing weird about doing so. Neither of us “cares” one bit where the other is, but it’s frequently useful to know.

Yes, because spouses are adults. But kids being constantly tracked is absolutely scary. Do you really think it's healthy that kids grow up always being watched, constantly monitored by their primary authority figures?

I don't think that distinction is as stark as you make it. Spouses can be overly, annoyingly controlling - and it can happen gradually. I'm sure that for every person who doesn't mind their partner knowing where they are, there's another who has been pressured into it - perhaps by it being insinuated that their not wanting to be trackable means that they have something to hide.

Right, exactly. So if it's not ok to pressure a spouse into tracking them when they don't want to be tracked, why is it ok to force a child to be tracked? Obviously parents have a lot of -- necessary -- leeway in what they decide their child must and must not do, regardless of the child's wishes. But I don't think it's healthy to get children used to the idea that the norm is that they'll be tracked 24/7. Even if the intent is to stop the tracking at, say, 12 years old, that's some powerful conditioning that they've been exposed to in their formative years.

Absolutely, I agree with you entirely. But I'm sure the state doesn't mind such indoctrination one bit.

Yes, they absolutely can be.

The difference is you can leave your spouse, an option not really realistic for a child.

You CAN leave your spouse - but in many common circumstances, it's by no means an easy option.

It's about consent perhaps?

I'm not going to say that consent doesn't exist - but it's sufficiently ill-defined as a concept that it is somewhat meaningless. What constitutes consent?

If I finally agree to something after being nagged interminably - have I consented, or have I just given in?

At the other end of the spectrum, if someone asks for something which doesn't particularly suit my purposes, but I agree to it as it seems fair enough - is that consent?

One situation seems like it is, the other one probably not. But where is the line? To me, consent seems like a vaguely letter-of-the-law, CYA type of word.

It's totally vague. Some decisions are considered okay for parents to make for their children without consent but others aren't.

I feel like as a teen I would consent to being tracked by my parents but that doesn't mean it would be a good idea. It all depends on intent and parent-child relationship in the first place (looking back I didn't have a great one :shrug:)

This is wild. Parents decide where and when their kid eats and sleeps and, what they eat and wear and thousand other very intrusive things, but suddenly when electronic device is involved, consent is required.

Parents decide that for babies. Kids going through puberty that let their parents continue to decide every decision can be an actual abusive relationship. You need to be influencing good behavior, not forcing it at a certain point.

Kinds going through puberty are already tracked through their phones, if not by their parents then by uncle Google. I thought we were talking about younger kids.

How can you so casually equate mass tracking by Google and direct surveillance by family member? that's not even whataboutism, completely different situation

Google doesn't need to know who I am to track me, Google cannot lock me up in my room, Google cannot gaslight/manipulate/abuse me based on where I went today

You are right, those are two completely different things. Some people are more concerned by one than then other. Some the other way around. However the technology exists. Children are living and will be living in the world in which that technology exists. They need to figure out how to live in this world. The same way kids of previous generations figured out how to live in the worlds they were born into.

And even in the context of abusive relationships, sometimes the more tools the abuser has, the more secure they feel in their abuse, the less impactful is their abuse on daily lives of the abused. The abusers get worse when they feel like they are loosing control.

> kids being constantly tracked is absolutely scary

Isn't that how the vast majority of the net worth of NH readers was generated?

... by... tracking... kids? No, I don't think so. You have a pretty weird conception of what HN readers do for a living.

> what HN readers do for a living.

Work for one of the FANGS, a social media platform, in ad tech, in big data (anything with humans) or any company that monetises through a) advertising or b) selling user data.

I am sure there are some people who work in financial services as well but they are probably considered to have lower moral standards.

I do personally think it's weird, but if other's are fine and comfortable with it, what two consenting adult decide about tracking each other is none of my business.

But kids don't get to consent to this. Their parents decide for them, regardless of what they do or don't want. I don't think kids should be forced to submit to 24/7 tracking, regardless of the intent behind it.

Only if you both are mature enough though. If you are constantly looking at the location of your spouse to see of they are cheating or something, and then question every unexpected movement they do, you won't benefit from it.

It’s also possible to be more liberal than your parents were with respect to expecting teenage experimentation but still want to know why your kid/spouse isn’t home within an hour of when you expected them and they aren’t responding to texts. Parents are still adults with lives and have better things to do than sit around watching a dot on a map.

“huh, I guess they went to get some boba, we’ll just go get dinner without them”

on the flip side, I would have killed to know where the hell my parents were when they didn’t show up for 30+ minutes after school, pool, or baseball practice.

If the main reason seems to be that you want to know where they are when they've decided not to answer the phone... maybe that's fine that you don't know. If you're expecting them for dinner, and they decide to do something else instead, they should learn that consequence: if they don't come home when they're expected for dinner, they don't get dinner with the family.

I don't have kids, so of course my opinion is irrelevant. But I do remember decently well what it was like to be a teenager in the 90s. I was a "good kid" and didn't get up to much that my parents didn't want me to do, but a) I did do some things my parents didn't want me to do, things that they would figure out real-time if they'd been able to track me, and b) despite me doing things they didn't want me to do, everything turned out fine. The idea that I wouldn't have been able to do those things, and the feeling of being trapped and constantly surveilled... that's gross.

And... you mention spouse, too? I would never let my spouse track me 24/7, and would never ask her or expect her to allow me to track her. To me, that would be creepy and an invasion of privacy. I get that some people do this (and know some of them), but I just think it's weird.

To each their own. I share my location with my partner since I'd rather have her check the app than text me where I am.

She doesn't share her location because she thinks it's creepy and I'm okay with that too.

People are different, and that's okay.

What did you do that your parents didn't want you to do? Some concrete examples? I'm asking because I'm having a hard time coming up with examples of things that both my parents wouldn't have wanted me to do and would be obvious if they tracked me in real time.

Not that hard to come up with. Going to a friend’s house instead of going to any variety of scheduled things you usually do (sports, theater, whatever). Similarly, the classic sleepover at approved friend’s place but actually sneaking out to do something else that isn’t at their house. I can think of many more. Maybe you were a by the book kid lol

Ok, yeah as teen if I skipped any schedule things to go to a friend house, my parents wouldn't have batted an eye. Outside of school obligations, the rest was my own choice.

If the premise is that they have a phone, why not just ask them where they are when you need to know?

Because that's an extra annoyance on both sides.

Extend this logic to other thing you should ask about, and you'll see it gets creepy very fast.

This. And also, the problem is people want to have too much control. You should build your society in such a way that if you lose control (a bit), its no problem. That is the real problem with tracking of parents and -for that matter- the security agencies. You should raise your children to be resilient. If they get lost, teach them how to get unlost. They should recognize danger by the stories we tell them and the experiences they had. Sometimes this goes wrong, and that is super sad, but things go wrong in life. There is no real way of preventing things to go wrong. We are now making sad human beings by putting our kids into a safe bubble.

>As I recall, a big part of growing up was spending time and doing things my parents didn’t want me to do.

a big part of parenting is making sure your kid actually is at school, or monitoring more closely a child that has done improper things.

In the 80's/90's if I was somewhere I shouldn't be or doing something that I shouldn't there was a 70% chance that when I got home my mother would know. The neighbourhood network of eyes was more powerful than googles all seeing eyes.

are you under the impression that the same neighborhood network of eyes is in operation all over the place like it was then or?

Also - when my daughter hacks all of her ex-boyfriend's social media accounts, should I monitor her activities by going and talking to the snooping neighbors?

Ha, everyone here is forgetting that. And also, that all our personal documents were unencrypted :-) Parents could freely snoop if they wanted to.

Come to think of it, the padlocked diary and encouragement to write all ones secrets in it might have been a psyop.

Or - A big part of parenting is building trust with your child to do what is expected of them, and dealing with it when they stray.

>dealing with it when they stray.

I know we're not supposed to assume reading comprehension problems here, so I just have to assume that your dealing with it when they stray does not have any component of monitoring in it? Because I said "or monitoring more closely a child that has done improper things." and everyone seems to think that you shouldn't monitor someone that has done improper things - I really don't get it?

Seems like apathy, oh your kid is sneaking out with other kids to drink, well give them a talking to and then whatever you do, don't monitor them!

Oh your kid got a sugar daddy on Roblox, hmm, well go talk to the neighbors next door, the 1980s neighbor network was the best way to ever keep track of your kids for every kid that didn't grow up in the 1980s.

Half of the commentators here seem to think I'm living in the 80s, and the other half seem to think I'm living in Kansas, but everyone is in agreement on one thing which is that I should definitely behave myself to their model of raising kids in 1980s Kansas.

Or - A bi gpart of parenting is making sure the kids understand why they have to go to school and how lucky they are to be able to.

(but I 100% agree with you, trust is not achieved with panopticon control)

> trust is not achieved with panopticon control

Indeed, it is actually eroded.

> a big part of parenting is making sure your kid actually is at school

Quite sure that is the schools job. At least where I live the schools tend to assume several of the rights and responsibilities that normally fall on the parents.

> or monitoring more closely a child that has done improper things.

Do I want to know what you fucked up in your childhood that you assume your kids need constant monitoring to prevent a repeat?

>Quite sure that is the schools job. At least where I live the schools tend to assume several of the rights and responsibilities that normally fall on the parents.

whoops, you got me - I live where you live too so your argument is like really super good.

>> or monitoring more closely a child that has done improper things.

>Do I want to know what you fucked up in your childhood that you assume your kids need constant monitoring to prevent a repeat?

Do I want to know what you was done to you in your childhood that you uh, whatever that was?

> Quite sure that is the schools job. At least where I live the schools tend to assume several of the rights and responsibilities that normally fall on the parents.

Yes. The school is responsible for their safety and whereabouts. US K-12 public schools, if the child is missing from school, parents are contacted immediately. Teachers are responsible for attendance. All this is accomplished without device tracking. Federal law explicitly defines the school's responsibilities with regard to privacy rights of children in school. If parents wish to contact their child during school hours, they are asked to call the school, and school personnel will contact the child.

Device use is an enormous problem in schools. Talk to any teacher / admin: they will tell you allowing devices into schools has been a disaster.

>US K-12 public schools, if the child is missing from school, parents are contacted immediately.

The US is definitely the world, and I am definitely in that world, and the people who make that assumption are definitely super smart all around.

Is doing things your spouse doesn't want you to do a big part of your adult life too?

For me spause tracking was mostly for knowing when to go out of our apartment building to help her carry groceries from the car when she arrives.

I share my location with my kids and ask them to do the same. They are aware that I can see their location. Since they never pick up their phone or respond to messages, it's the quickest way to check if they are already on their way home.

If they want to do something that they don't want me to know, they can just turn off location sharing, or leave their watch at home.

I guess it only works if your parents are mature enough to not actually judge everything you do.

This is very “nothing to hide” fallacy