IBS807 Eleventh Debate: Privacy Issues and Monitoring Children Online

This discussion post analyzes the debate concerning the monitoring of children's internet activity, focusing on the conflict between parental control and children's right to privacy. The paper explores the arguments for and against parental monitoring, considering the potential benefits of protecting children from online dangers such as cyberbullying and exposure to inappropriate content. It also highlights the potential drawbacks of excessive monitoring, including the erosion of trust, the fostering of rebellion, and the potential for increased anxiety in children. The post references research on teenage behavior, the impact of parental control, and the importance of open communication. Ultimately, it concludes that while parents have a responsibility to guide their children, excessive monitoring can be counterproductive, and that a balance between guidance and privacy is essential. The post references studies and surveys, including data on social media usage among teenagers, to support its arguments and offers alternative approaches to ensure children's safety online.

PRIVACY ISSUES; THE MONITORING OF CHILDREN’S INTERNET ACTIVITY
Student name

MONITORING CHILDREN INTERNET ACTIVITY
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PRIVACY ISSUES; THE MONITORING OF CHILDREN’S INTERNET ACTIVITY
CON Position
Use of the internet is not only popular within adults, business organizations, and the corporate
world, but it has also gained children attention to large extent. Children are using the internet for
various uses like being social through interacting with friends and family through social media
platforms. Moreover, on the positive aspect, children are also using the internet for searching
related to study material. There has been various research conducted over the children and
teenagers behaviour and attitude towards the use of the internet and social media (pewinternet).
Through the survey, it can be said that YouTube and Instagram were most popular among
teenagers (as presented below). Other than this, this survey also depicts that around ninety five
percent of children have smartphone access and the findings say that forty five percent of them
are generally online the whole time (pewinternet).

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Figure 1: (Source: (pewinternet)
Parents are a concern for their children, the reason being the chances of crime and cyberbullying
has also increased with an increase in the use of the internet among teenagers. Moreover, the
parents believe that they need to control the use of smart devices in order to keep their children
concentrate on their carrier. There have been various ways parents are willing to control their
children use of internet like screen timeout devices and applications in smartphones, where the
parents can check out the time children are spending over the phone and at which application
how much time is being spent. According to the parental controls, the key reasons that reflect
that the parents must monitor their children activities are that through parental control they could
monitor the search engines in order to check if their children are going in the right direction and
are not involved into any adult content. Other than this, students also are stuck into some games

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that may enhance addiction among the children, which may be harmful as well. For example, a
blue whale challenge scam in 2016 led to a serious problem among teenagers in various nations.
Through parental control will also increase cyber safety habits. However, parental control may
be a con for the children in the long run (techaddiction).
The parental control like limiting the time for their children regarding the use of phone of
stocking their social media websites and search histories could also lead to negative
circumstances. These activities may lead to dissatisfaction among teenagers. It has been observed
that understanding teenagers are very difficult, the reason being in most of the national cultures,
kids as they grow to prefer to be independent and consider their privacy as major aspect and
expectation from their parents (Byrne). Moreover, with the changing scenario, children have
become smart enough to judge what is right and wrong, thus controlling their activity could lead
to aggression and unexpected reactions from children, which may not be good in the long run.
For example, the parental control could be the major reason that the children would not prefer to
interact to their parents, in fact when they would be in an actual problem, they would not prefer
to share with their parents. In addition to this, other cons to a breach of children privacy would
also hamper their experience and learning from mistakes. Parents cannot control their children
live for long, which also reflect that if they are controlled that much they would not be able to
learn from their previous mistakes, which is the best way of learning in life (Crosby).
As per the researches, the major cause or harm due to excessive parental control includes making
children rebel. It has been identified that the rebellion is considered to be the nature which is
reflected in various ways and this could be against parents in case of such privacy breach
activities. It has been identified that children have the rights to have freedom at a certain level,
and teenage is growing age where children are aware of the right thing to do. Increase parents try

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to control their children internet or other activities, children may take actions that would be less
reasonable and more forcefully (Melotti, Poti and Brighi). Parent need to supervise and guide
their children in the right direction so they take the correct decision, but controlling their children
would also lead them to take wrong decisions in aggression, and rebellion. Another con to
excessive parental control and monitoring internet activity may increase the nervousness among
children. This included anxiety among children that may hamper children health as well, and
may influence in other circumstances as well. For example, some people could react negatively
like locking themselves or leaving the house or similar action that would not include reasonable
decision from children. Therefore, it can be said that parents must provide privacy to children
and instead of monitoring children internet activity, they could have provided guidance and
suggestion regarding the use of the internet. Moreover, they could informally communicate with
their children to know what is going on with their life or any issue faced by students like
cyberbullying (psychologicalscience).
To conclude this debate it can be said that there is a positive and negative side to parental
control. Privacy is major there have been various ways parents are willing to control their
children use of internet like screen timeout devices. According to parents, they are helping their
children by monitoring their internet activity. However, there are various cons for breaching the
privacy of children or monitoring their internal activities. For instance, the major harm to such
excessive parental control would be getting a reaction from children, which is due to aggression,
nervousness, or rebel nature due to excessive parental control, and the level of anxiety among
children. Therefore, it can be said that the parents must not have the rights to breach into their
children privacy.

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References
Byrne, E. “Cyberbullying and social media: Information and interventions for school nurses
working with victims, students, and families.” The Journal of School Nursing 34.1
(2018): 38-50.
Crosby, S. “The Connection Between Cyberbullying and Teenage Suicide: An Honors Thesis.”
(2018).
Melotti, G, S Poti and A Brighi. “Adolescents at risk of delinquency. The role of parental
control, trust, and disclosure.” Deviant Behavior 39.3 (2018): 347-362.
pewinternet. teens-social-media-technology-2018. 2019. 2019
<https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/>.
psychologicalscience. parents-just-dont-understand-the-role-of-parental-control-in-western-and-
east-asian-countries. 2019.
<https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/parents-just-dont-understand-the-
role-of-parental-control-in-western-and-east-asian-countries.html>.
techaddiction. media-statistics. 2019. <http://www.techaddiction.ca/media-statistics.html>.