Parents should be allowed to monitor their children (debates)
Project on a Problem Situation
Parents should be allowed to monitor their children’s online and mobile communications
Class Version I. Introduction
This debate has a fairly large scope as it concerns itself with children, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC), that is, “any human being under the age of 18” and parents, whether biological, social, or legal. The proposed action is a form of parental control called “monitoring” in all its forms whether manually (i.e. browsing Internet History), through the help of software (i.e. keystroke logs, transcripting of messages, screen capturing), or any act that acquires information about a child’s digital activities in all intentions and circumstances, particularly whether or not the act is done under the child’s awareness or consent. Any other parental controls such as content filtering, use restrictions, contact management, and privacy protections are not to be considered as “monitoring” but may be discussed for the purposes of the debate. The receivers of the action are the online and mobile communications of the child which includes any information that is transmitted and received by the child through the Internet and mobile networks, made possible through computers, PDA’s, cellphones, gaming consoles, media players, and the other digital devices. It should be noted that some of the statistics supporting some assertions are exclusive to either the U.S. or U.K. Also, while the idealized age range is “any human beings under the age of 18”, the age range of some statistics may fluctuate minimally but retains the relevance to the matter at hand.
In the U.K. 97% of 9 to 19-year-olds use the internet on a frequency ranging from occasional to daily and 81% of the same age range own a mobile phone. At the same time, spammers, cyberbullies, and child pornographers also have access to the web and can potentially harm children. In an attempt to ward off such dangers, 1/3 of households use
Parents should be allowed to monitor their children’s online and mobile communications
Class Version I. Introduction
This debate has a fairly large scope as it concerns itself with children, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC), that is, “any human being under the age of 18” and parents, whether biological, social, or legal. The proposed action is a form of parental control called “monitoring” in all its forms whether manually (i.e. browsing Internet History), through the help of software (i.e. keystroke logs, transcripting of messages, screen capturing), or any act that acquires information about a child’s digital activities in all intentions and circumstances, particularly whether or not the act is done under the child’s awareness or consent. Any other parental controls such as content filtering, use restrictions, contact management, and privacy protections are not to be considered as “monitoring” but may be discussed for the purposes of the debate. The receivers of the action are the online and mobile communications of the child which includes any information that is transmitted and received by the child through the Internet and mobile networks, made possible through computers, PDA’s, cellphones, gaming consoles, media players, and the other digital devices. It should be noted that some of the statistics supporting some assertions are exclusive to either the U.S. or U.K. Also, while the idealized age range is “any human beings under the age of 18”, the age range of some statistics may fluctuate minimally but retains the relevance to the matter at hand.
In the U.K. 97% of 9 to 19-year-olds use the internet on a frequency ranging from occasional to daily and 81% of the same age range own a mobile phone. At the same time, spammers, cyberbullies, and child pornographers also have access to the web and can potentially harm children. In an attempt to ward off such dangers, 1/3 of households use