Parental Monitoring And Cellular Phones

If you are a parent concerned about what your child is doing with their mobile phone– whether or not they’re talking to strangers, for example– you may want to keep reading. This topic was spawned by a question from such a parent.

And if you’re the kind of person who’s easily agitated about technology and the erosion of privacy, a Luddite, a Big Brother Conspiracy Theorist, or anyone else who hasn’t quite come to terms with the modern age we’re living in– you might want to stop reading here.
You’ve been warned. I will not respond to your e-mail.

Regular readers (and tech-savvy people in general) know that your computer use at work is monitored. And you’ve probably heard of “spyware” and “keyloggers” that record what you type (my readers have, and that’s fer sher). And you know that GPS devices can pinpoint your location.

And you know that cameras (usually hidden) are being installed everywhere– as a crime and terrorism preventative, and to stop red-light runners. Cities compete to have the highest percentage of camera coverage.

And you know that modern phones allow text messaging, the sending of photos and movies, and surfing the Internet. (They are becoming more like little laptops everyday.)

And you know that the Internet can be a dangerous place. Especially for kids.
(read Monitoring Your Teenager’s Internet Usage – Should You?)

And thus the parent’s dilemma. If you have a child, the day will come when they want a phone. I think that happens around the ages of 7-9, these days.
And being kids, they won’t want just any old phone, but they will want a “kewl” phone; one with all the bell’s and whistles. (Your hands are kind of tied on this.. nobody makes a “plain old cellphone” anymore. Haven’t for years.)

“But Mom, everybody’s got one!”

The answer, for you, may be to give your child a phone that allows you to see what they text and IM, control who their “contacts” are, and, maybe, even record their calls. It’s called “parental monitoring”, and the extent to which you use it is up to you.
[note: if reading that made your blood pressure go up a notch, refer now to the second paragraph.]

You don’t need to buy a special phone.. or even a new phone, to monitor your child’s activity.
* There is commercial software that can be installed on every type of phone– such as RADAR and MobileSpy. These can notify you in “real time” if a parameter you set is being broken. iPhone users can look at safe eyes.
[note: did your employer give you your cellphone? Think, people. Think. Let’s add two and two here.]

* There are USB dongles that read a phone’s SIM chip –even if your child’s erased their messages– for $50.

So, if you’re a concerned parent, you have several options that will allow you to find some middle ground. And if you’re a Big Brother Conspiracy Theorist.. well, friend, it’s twice as bad as you dare to realize and it’s only going to get worse.

Today’s free link(s): Concerned parents who have a child reaching the driving age (and Big Brother Conspiracy Theorists) might read my article “What Your Car Is Saying About You.”
Or you can give them a Guardian Angel cell phone which reports their location and speed..

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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The lingo that you do

Folks– business obligations require a reposting today…

I have an embarrassing confession to make–I don’t always know how to translate what someone has text-ed into English. I need a Text-to-English dictionary. This is just one more fact, added to an already long list of facts, that tells me I’ve gotten ‘old’. We didn’t have texting when I was a teenager.

I think part of my problem stems from the fact that we have had an explosion of an “extreme” (or maybe I should say “X-treme”) phenomenon in this country. Everything has become X-treme this, and X-treme that. There are the X-Games featuring X-treme Sports, X-treme Motorcross, X-treme Snowboarding…we even had X-treme Football for a while. Guys are no longer content jumping their motorcycles across small creeks, they want to fly, and they do loop-the-loop’s now.

At first I thought texting was simply X-treme Abbreviation. And then I thought it might be a combination of Vanity Licenseplate Language and X-Abbreviation. This thinking allowed me to read some of what I saw, but not all. I could decipher “gr8” and “l8r”, but not “b4n”. It didn’t help that I wasn’t a “texter” myself (Use a cellphone and give myself ear cancer? Not this fella!).

And then it dawned on me: these kids are using an Adult-proof secret code. They don’t want me to decipher it. The world suddenly made a lot more sense. My friends and I had used code too.

Fotunately, there are resources available for those of us who are “lingo”-handicapped. If you see “A/S/L”, but don’t understand what it means, you can find out (age/sex/location?) — and if you are a parent concerned about your kid and what they’re doing and saying on the Internet and in chatrooms — I suggest you do. If you’re like me, and just want to try to increase your “hipness” quotient (or just avoid some terrible faux pas), you will also find these translation resources useful and interesting. My favorite is below:

Free link of the day: Lingo2Word. “Lingo2word is devoted to demistifying the new Internet shorthand language of Text messages, Chat rooms and Emails. We are devoted to the fun of text messaging in all forms, there is a whole new fun language out there just waiting for you!”

Copyright © 2007 Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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