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Harlan Coben in a news article titled The Undercover Parent claims that parents should monitor their children’s internet use to an extant. I both agree with and disagree with his declaration. I agree with the fact that he wants you to monitor the teenagers internet use. What I disagree with is how he say to an extant.
I agree with Coben when he says that he is okay with the monitoring of your teenagers use of the internet. I especially agreed when he said “Trust is one thing, but surrendering parental responsibility to a machine that allows the entire world access to your home borders on negligence.” It’s true you can’t just let your teen roam on the internet with no boundaries. The internet is a dangerous place and your child would not go through life unharmed by it if you let them handle it them it alone. Teenagers make mistakes and it’s parents’ jobs to fix them, prevent them, or teach them the correct ways. If you don’t monitor your teenager with spyware they will make a mistake and get hurt. Coben is only trying to persuade parents to do the right thing in the article so why don’t more people listen.
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I don’t agree with Coben when he says to an extant. Everyone can be dangerous and if you don’t monitor it all then anything could happen. Your teenager could be texting this guy who starts saying rude things which ends up with your teen suiciding or becoming depressed. Any irrelevant things you could just block out and not pay as much attention to, but you need to keep your child monitored. It’s easy to stray from safe when everywhere around safe websites are dangerous. Teenagers are curious leading them to try new things. So, they can easily start talking to a stranger, thinking it’s a friend, want to meet them then get kidnapped and murdered. See, what if that was your child and you thought they were just a friend in their texts and disregarded
Internet is advancing every day, parents have no idea what their kids are doing in cyberspace and are contemplating the idea of spyware. In the article, “The Undercover Parent” by Harlan Coben, he argues the idea of parents putting spyware on kids’ computer is a good idea to keep the child safe. Many American parents have no idea what happens in cyberspace; sex, bullying, and drugs. Parents are torn between protecting their child with spyware and allowing the child to have privacy. Coben uses his friends’ personal experiences to support his argument without leaving room for counterarguments. By using strong emotional appeals, weak qualifiers, and sugary word choice Coben creates a weak argument that lacks persuasion.
Williams, R. (2014). Children using social networks underage 'exposes them to danger'. [online] Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10619007/Children-using-social-networks-underage-exposes-them-to-danger.html [Accessed 24 Apr. 2014].
Harlan Coben’s essay “The Undercover Parent” attempts to enlighten readers, specifically parents, of the benefits to installing spyware onto their children’s computers in order to keep record of their child’s online activity. Whilst admitting at first he was not particularly keen on spyware himself, Coben aims to persuade his audience of the benefits by highlighting the dangers of children using the internet unsupervised and without boundaries. However, Coben fails to supply factual evidence to back up his claims, all while stating a number of contradictions within his own arguments.
The expansion of the Internet infrastructure across the world, has brought an increased audience. Which has provided expanded markets for businesses and exploited new opportunities. There are virtually countless social sites and media used by individuals to access and share experiences , content, insights, and perspectives. Parents today tend to believe they should spy on their kids online activity. I argue parents should respect the privacy of a child's social life and his/her internet activity.
As it was mentioned in the article, “Let kids Run Wild Online”, kids want to have freedom and a place place where they can have some privacy, a place where they can explore the world and themselves without their parents haunting them. Now, we don’t see as many kids in the streets due to the dangers they can encounter. Therefore, teens use internet to have some freedom and some time for themselves. Now days, parents concentrate a lot of their attention in their kids which is completely understandable considering their concern about their kids’ safety. Although, I agree that parents need to give their kids their space in the internet considering that the internet is now an important source of freedom and sometimes the only source of freedom for teenagers. Over protective parents also harm their kids by not letting them learn from their mistakes, kids are not developing the skills to confront the struggles of the world, and kids won’t really know what their personality without their parents watching them all the time. The best way parents can help their children is not by motoring what they do in the internet but by having good communication with their kids and by teaching them values and morals because their kids will encounter dangers wherever they go and parents can’t be with them all the time. Therefore, parents must teach their kids what to do in a situation of danger or even how to avoid those situations.
Online predators, pornography, drug trafficking, piracy, and hate sites are just some of the dangers that a child can face on the internet. The article “The Undercover Parent” by Harlan Coben states that parents should use spyware to monitor their children. Coben argues that parents should be able to know what is in their children’s lives. he believes that spyware can prevent children from being targeted by internet predators on social networking sites and even prevent children from being cyber bullied. I agree with Coben’s claim that parents should consider using spyware as a protection for their teens online. There are many possible dangers facing children on the internet and it is essential that parents install spyware.
...traying these situations is supported by the fact that 73% of teens are on a social network and 55% of teens have given out personal information to someone they don’t know, including photos and physical descriptions (Taylor). Parents see this as a threat because they can’t monitor what their children do 24/7 due to 67% of teens knowing how to hide what they do online from parents and only 34% of parents actually checking their social networks (Thomas). However, the circumstance still comes to a government threat when predators break the law of being involved with a minor, along with bullies triggering self-harm like suicide and cutting to their victims.
In the article Coben states his argument which is that he thinks parents should have spyware to watch what their teen is doing because it could protect the teen from pedophiles and cyberbullying. “…we’ve all read about the young boy unknowingly conversing
I agree with Coben's argument. I agree because Coben does a good job of explaining his claim. His claim was that monitoring your child's use of the internet is a good thing to do. He has three reasons that stood out to me more than the rest. Those reasons are: monitoring your child on the internet is just another way you should watch your child, it is for the safety of your kids, and it is for the safety of their future.
While not always seen, overall, teenagers get far less privacy than adults do. Between schools checking through the belongings of their students without solid evidence to allow it, or parents monitoring the activity of their children online, teenagers today are subject to much of their privacy being taken away. It is true that this can sometimes be helpful in busting drug dealers or keeping teenagers from getting involved with bad habits online. However, it can also have an adverse effect, ruining the relationship between a parent and his or her child, or other relationships throughout the rest of the teenager’s life. Teenagers should be allowed more privacy, if not as much as adults have, as it will keep them less fearful, as well as help to keep their interpersonal relationships strong and their emotions in a good state.
¨The Undercover Parent¨ by Harlan Coben, published in an online newspaper ¨New York Times¨ (16 March 2008), claims that the Internet is dangerous for kids. Harlan Coben explains how spyware could be a resource that keeps track of our kids’ internet use, but how it could also invade sons’ and daughters’ privacy. He also claims that parents should have conversations about their concerns with teens, and let them know spyware is a possibility. In my opinion, I quite agree and do not agree with the most of it.
When it comes to having an account online it can get quite dangerous. Not only is it dangerous but having the gadget lying around the house or even having their own at a young age can make it easier for them to have easy access to those social media accounts. Parents need to take precaution with their children and the internet. Meeting someone online is so much more different from meeting them in person. It is hard to tell if people and kids are their real age that they put on their information because you can actually lie about how old you really are. There has been many cases where involving younger girls talking to older men, a 15-year-old can be talking to a
There has been no significant difference on the risks between a teenager who is offline or online. Nevertheless, factors such as the type of risk, social media usage, and the psychological makeup of a teenager actively using social media predisposes them to inappropriate manners and behavior that are exposed through real world activities. They also manifest difficulties in some parts of their lives (Berkman, 2010). Therefore, how the person reacts to whatever he or she saw, hear and witness in social media is not always similar to the other person because we perceive what we receive in uniquely different
In today’s society, much advancement has been made throughout the universe. However, one that seems to stand out in particular is the use of social media. Social media has both positive and negative effects on society. This advancement has led to a difference in communication to everyone by reconnecting with others, or even informing the public nationwide through televisions such as the news or talk shows. However, is social media safe to use? Social media has a great impact on everyone in society. While allowing your children or teenagers to engage in social media a few things to consider are the risks of youth using social media, what age is too young, and also how social media is useful in some cases. Children participate in cyber bullying now and even find themselves involved in bad habits, such as sexting (Schurgin O’Keefe). According to a recent poll conducted, over 22 percent of teenagers log onto their social media site more than ten times a day (Schurgin O’Keefe). Not everything is negative towards social media, but there are precautions that need to be taken when there is the youth involved.
These individuals feel that it is an invasion of the teenagers’ right to privacy and the development of their trustworthiness. Kay Mathieson states “only by giving children privacy will they come to see their thoughts as something that belongs to them – to which they have an exclusive right.” In the United States and according to the law, monitoring the internet usage of a minor does not break any laws and is a moral obligation of the parent. Trustworthiness is an important development of a child to learn in order to develop genuine relationships with others in the lifetime. “Not only does monitoring have the great potential to undermine the trust of the child in the parent, and thus to undermine trust in others more generally, it also has the potential to undermine the capacity of the child to be worth of trust” (Mathieson). If the parent has not already had conversations with the teenager about monitoring internet usage and the parent is not telling the child about the monitoring, there is already an issue with the development of trustworthiness in the teenager. There was already a failure of development of this skill before the internet or internet monitoring was introduced.