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In his controversial essay, “The Undercover Parent,” Harlen Coben takes a focused look at ethical and responsible parenting. Originally published in the New York Times, Coben shares how some of his friends confessed to using spyware to track their 15-year-olds internet usage covertly. Initially, the idea repulsed Coben, but after doing his research, he “gets it” (2008). Throughout the essay, Coben argues his support for such tactics. However, his claim rests upon some questionable pretenses.
Citing the dangers of pedophiles, porn, cyberbullying, Coben asserts that using spyware is a justified parenting practice. He draws attention to the parental inconsistency of overprotecting their children in the physical world, then sending them unprotected into the dangers of the web (Coban, 2008). While Coban recognizes that this can seem like an invasion of privacy, he makes the differentiation between the false anonymity the internet provides, and a locked journal kept under a mattress (2008). He maintains that it is not a matter of trust, implies that parents who do not spy on their children’s internet use are negligent.
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Coben presents his arguments in an engaging and composed manner, however hiding beneath this an undertone of fear coats his case.
While he tries his best to avoid invoking Lovejoy’s Law, Coben’s conjecture relies on the logical fallacy. In his concluding thesis, he writes that while Americans tend to distrust all infringements of privacy, the growing challenge of the internet requires us to question that virtue, “And particularly when it comes to our children. (Coben, 2008)” Coben’s wants you to leave his essay worried about your kids, a tactic to distract you from the underlying hole in his argument. Parents who need spyware to monitor their children are
already While there are many counter arguments to the spyware itself, they become unnecessary to argue Coben when the need for his case is analyzed. Allowing a 15-year-old unsupervised access to the internet is wrong, which is why children should not be given access to the web in cases where supervision comes in the form of a virus. Instead of spyware, consider giving children structured internet access. Teach children the dangers of the web, and then require that if they are to use it, they must first ask permission and use it in supervised areas. If parents cannot personally watch them, they do not need to access the internet. Too many parents will give children a personal device, which sets both parties up for failure. Only using spyware is analogous to sending a child alone down a dark alley, and then calling an ambulance if they get attacked. Instead, parents should walk with their children to better protect them before the are in danger. In the modern Information Age, there are very real dangers on the internet, with children often left the most vulnerable to them. Rightly, Coben recognizes the parental duty to supervise their children and to teach them the dangers of the internet. However, his methods for doing so are only applicable if the parents have already decided that instead of protecting their children, they only plan to bandage their wounds and make sure it does not happen again.
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.
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.
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. Coben states, “…overprotective parents fight their kids’ battles on the playground, berate coaches about playing time and fill out college applications…” (19). This is a weak argument because it inadvertently suggests that overprotectiveness
PROTECTIVE DAD My paper is called “Protective Dad”. I decided to use a Hyundai commercial featuring Kevin Hart as the main character. Kevin Hart is playing the role as the father in the commercial. His daughter’s boyfriend wants to take her on a date so Hart gives permission.
Lily Huang author of Protect the Willfully Ignorant states “An increasingly urgent question of privacy or how best to keep your public plot walled in” (474). Most internet users savvy or not, are aware of the potential risks. Most people know the potential risk for permanency and of the pictures or information we put out on social networks or other sites and the content being seen. We have all heard the warnings since grammar school from everyone about the internet and how to use it. Teachers, parents, librarians and school inundate our children all throughout school about information on safe usage. To be aware of predators and such is common knowledge. Why the need for laws to protect childrens’ privacy, and usage against exploitation? Similar reasons to why we wear seatbelts while driving and it is enforced by law. We all want our freedoms not to be infringed but at what cost and to who? We are aware of the statistics and outcomes of auto accidents without seatbelts and the need “to protect the willfully ignorant” (Huang). Lily Huang discussed consumer’s lack of expertise for making the best privacy decisions and how important default privacy settings are on social networks (475).
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.
A news article called The Undercover Parent by Harlan Coben published in March 16, 2008 as a persuasive editorial where Coben argues how parents using spyware to spy on their kid’s internet history and how sometimes it might go too far. The author starts developing his argument by giving an anecdote of how one of his friends put spyware on their kid’s computer, and later on during the article Coben claims how parents can check up on their kids to see if they’re being cyber bullied or doing something inappropriate but shouldn’t cross the line of looking at their social status. Coben persuades other parents to get spyware to monitor their child’s behavior on the internet in order to make sure their parent know what
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.
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.
I do not agree with parents eavesdropping some private conversation between their child and their child’s friend. It invades the child’s privacy and it would make him/her feel absolutely down about it since he/she can’t be free from his/her parents. Even if the parents tell their children that they have set up the spyware on their computer, they will always find a way to talk to their Internet friends privately. In paragraph 9, Coben stated, ¨Second, everything your child types can already be seen by the world-- teachers, potential employers, friends, neighbors, future dates. Shouldn’t he learn now that the Internet is not a haven of privacy?¨ First of all, this has nothing to do with Spyware. It is a good argument, but it doesn’t have to do with the parents actually. It’s the boy’s fault to type scandalous things on the Internet and it is his decision to do that. He shouldn’t have done that in the first place to avoid getting into trouble. In paragraph 12, Coben wrote, ¨Yes. But text messages and cell phones don’t offer the anonymity and danger of the Internet.¨ I agree that it doesn’t offer the anonymity and danger of the Internet. Nevertheless, he must’ve forgotten that people have a power to cyber bully other people through texts. Above all, the people who have a great desire to upload it on the Internet, could receive the inappropriate cyber bully. Hence, it also shows the danger of being cyber bullied. In paragraph 13,
Levy and Wyer point out through the use of language, facts and emotional appeals that internet privacy has, is and always will be prevalent. Levy’s article has a subtle, sarcastic quality to it but gives both sides of the story and thus more neutral than Wyer’s article. Wyer is clearly opinionated regarding the government invading society’s personal queries. Although both articles give facts, Wyer’s was able to give the audience more facts to compel his audience to action whereas Levy’s did not.
The article “Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to Their Children?” by David Murphey and P. Mae Cooper emphasizes the impact that the incarceration of parents has on their children. The article states that “Children do not often figure in discussions of incarceration, but new research finds more than five million U.S. children have had at least one parent in prison at one time or another.” What impact does this have on children? Research shows that the outcomes associated with incarceration are almost always negative. The child experiences traumatic stress and loss of “an attachment figure”. The child may also be experiencing continued encounters with law enforcement and the corrections system and similar things which only increase the traumatization.
In her article, media and culture scholar Julie Frechette states that these Internet blocking-content services are constructed by financial and political motives from the corporations, the government, and the private computer companies . Furthermore, Frechette argues that, “…such a discursive trend manufactures consent through a hegemonic force that overlooks the invasion of advertising or marketing strategies targeted at young people online .” Similarly to Zuboff, Frechette touches up on how private tech companies misuse its users’ private matter and turn it into their profit. For example, AOL provides its users with kids-oriented Internet program called “Kids Only”. The particular program allows parents to control and manage what kind of information and content in the Internet.
In the article "Big Brother Meets Big Mother", Ellen Goodman, a parent, lists the overwhelming amount of spyware methods parents are adding to their "family-friendly arsenal"; including GPS tracking, applications that monitor children's grades and messages, and finally, a "chip implanted under your child's skin" (Goodman par. 3,6). Parents have gone too far, wanting to micromanage every miniscule detail regarding their children's lives, never allowing them a chance to breathe without their knowledge. However, children deserve a certain level of privacy, to live and learn from their mistakes; and parents need to respect that confidentiality, trusting that they raised their children in a correct way to protect themselves from anything they encounter. Because of the fears and dangers that spyware presents, "we [are] raising a generation with low expectations of public privacy" (Goodman par. 13).
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.