The Undercover Parent Harlan Coben Analysis

¨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.

First of all, I quite agree with Coben’s suggestion of spyware. Most of the kids as of today, will meet someone online and decides to meet them somewhere, which is dangerous. In my own experience, I’ve been calling and chatting strangers

online. I’ve been making a lot of Internet friends online, although, I know in myself that it’s dangerous. Since I know that it is, I don’t usually share personal information with them (this includes my address, my full name, and my pictures). There have been a lot of reports about strangers killing kids or some victim that they met and deceived online. In my point of view, those kind of news are totally unacceptable.
Spyware is one of the ways to prevent the killing incidents and it is also a way to prevent our children seeing or clicking through the harmful sites. For example, a kid researching might accidentally click on a site that has a lot of malicious pictures, adult content, and some other things that the kid shouldn’t see. In paragraph 8, Coben said, ¨First, we’ve all read about the young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile or the girl who was cyber bullied to the point where she committed suicide.¨ I agree on this part because I’ve been cyber bullied once. Some guy posted unacceptable things about me on Facebook and I knew that everyone could see it. Luckily, my friends didn’t believe it and everyone reported him. A lot of people, even my friends, are experiencing or have experienced cyber bullying and I know that there’s a time in their lives when they want to commit suicide because of it.
On the contrary, spyware has many disadvantages.

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,

Coben stated that, ¨One friend of mine, using spyware to monitor his college-bound, straight-A daughter, found out that not only was she using drugs, but she was also sleeping with her dealer.” As I said, it’s her decision to do that. However, I agree that the use of spyware could prevent these kind of situations, but I’m pretty sure that you have to pay for installation of spyware.
At the end reading his article, I quite agree and disagree with Coben’s claims.

Harlan Coben’s suggestion of spyware has a bunch of advantages and disadvantages. Some parents need to use it, some parents don’t. He claims a lot of positive effects about Spyware, but I do not agree with the most of it. Spyware does help in a lot of ways. It might help us reduce the cases for drugs and cyber-bullying and as well as protecting our personal information, but it’s also our job to avoid sharing our information to strangers online and thinking about our decisions twice. However, whatever precautions we do to avoid the dangers of these kind of situations, the Internet would always be a dangerous place for

everyone.