Don't Chip Me, Mom
James Poulos, Ed. ·
Sep 22, 2010 at 8:10am
Here's another issue where we could see a strong Freak Power/Rube Power consensus:
"You take the family to the food court. Your wife and Pete head for tacos. You and Danny want Chinese. You look up at the menu. You look down to see what Danny wants. But you don't see Danny. Every parent knows that feeling. Imagine if he were actually abducted ..."
So goes one of the ads for the tsunami of new mobile devices, chips, apps and alerts that promise to keep track of our children's every move. [...] At last, here's an easy way to keep an electronic eye on our kids and make sure they're safe! But what really happens is this:
- Now that we can track our children's every move, we start to think maybe we should. (Sort of like once we could buy our babies those black and white, brain-stimulating mobiles, it started to feel like it's just something a good parent does.)
- Once we think we should track our kids, it means we also start think that this makes sense -- that our kids are quite possibly in danger any time we're not with them.
- Once we start thinking that, we feel our job is to keep them under constant surveillance.
- And once we buy into that, we begin living in a constant state of fear, only assuaged by a glance at the GPS tracker. Phew! He's still there!
The device is like a drug: Once addicted, we only feel good when we're mainlining it.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Don't Chip Me, Mom
And eventually you will not need the chip when they're still living with you at the age of thirty-four.
Edited on Sep 22, 2010 at 8:14amJul '10
Re: Don't Chip Me, Mom
Every parent knows that feeling? Not me. My children actually have discipline. It's rare I know.
Jun '10
Re: Don't Chip Me, Mom
Sounds like the ideal progressive device. It promises that it can protect your child, but really, it creates a new level of control and concern without really adding anything. Then, your child will be taken, the kidnapper will take off/out the chip...proving that we need to make the chip more powerful, and implant it in the hip bone, so it can't be easily removed - and we need more tracking stations.
And, we want to know WHO they were with before they went out of sight, so we need audio video - and more tracking stations. and then, now that we have the data, we can and certainly ought to use it to track their whereabouts during the day - to learn the optimal patterns of behavior.
In fact, if there are places we don't want our citizens (sorry, children) to go, we can put up electronic fences, sort of like the electronic dog fence...
Edited on Sep 22, 2010 at 9:16amSep '10
Re: Don't Chip Me, Mom
Boy am I glad this technology didn't exist during my misspent youth; my mother would absolutely have had a tracking chip installed if she could have.
Re: Don't Chip Me, Mom
I think this about cell phones all the time. I adore my parents but wow would they have abused the ability to determine my whereabouts at any given moment. Love you Mom and Dad!
Aug '10
Re: Don't Chip Me, Mom
Growing up in a small town, my mom (and my grandparents, my uncle, teachers, etc) did seem to know where I was and what I was up to and who I was with at all times. It was uncanny. And unsettling. And I am very much looking forward to using the same network with (on) my kids.
May '10
Re: Don't Chip Me, Mom
Man. I let my kids walk across the street to play with friends with nothing than a "tell me where you are". Sometimes they move from home to home as the gaggle of kids grow. Should I be more worried?