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I’ve noticed a trend recently in new apps that are available for phones. More specifically, apps that allow one user to monitor and control another user’s phone activities; for example, being able to read messages sent, monitor calls, and control which apps are downloaded and used. This sounds like an alarming way for abusive partners to gain control of yet another aspect of their partner’s lives, but these apps are mostly marketed towards parents.
Parents have wanted to know what’s going on in their kids’ lives since the beginning of time, and that’s okay. But this is the first generation to have access to smartphones and the internet from an early age, and that’s making parents a little bit crazy. Yes, there are all manners of dangers online, from peer-group bullying, to predators just waiting for the opportunity to befriend. This is where internet education and a healthy, open relationship between parent and child are helpful.
But you know what doesn’t foster a healthy and open relationship? Snooping through your child’s phone, or even giving them access to a phone only on condition that you’re allowed to install spyware or go through it at a moment’s notice. This, to me, is the equivalent of a parent reading their child’s diary in the pre-mobile technology days. It’s a gross invasion of their privacy, and it will lead to a mutual distrust.
Got teenagers who stay up all night using their phones? Andrew Daddo is here to help.
If you’re still dubious and believe that you have the right to look through your teen’s phone because they’re underage or because you pay their phone bill, perhaps some of these responses from teens to the question “should teens have privacy?” on Quora might change your mind.
A 16-year-old user wrote that she is restricted from downloading apps, using her phone at all between the hours of 12am – 6.30am, seeing websites which use words prohibited by her mother, tracked (to the point her mother receives an alert every time the front door to their home is opened), and her messages read.