What is Digg?43 Comments
- ThinkBox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23One more reason for your children to HATE Verizon
One more reason for your children to learn how to spoof their phone
One more reason for your children to develop a unique Linux distro for that phone in order to spoof the phone
One more reason for your children to pick a bad nursing home for you
One more reason for your children to leave their phone at home - wbreim, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15this is awful, it promotes a false sense of security, parents will think oh look at the blip on the screen it's safe... all the kidnapper has to do is leave the cell phone in the playground... Now if this service is geared towards warning the parents of voluntary movements of the children it is even worse. Whatever happen to trust? believe me either you have tech gadgets to protect your children from EVERYTHING or... you build trust and hope they do the right thing....
- InsomniaSlim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+115-9 with a cell?!? You've GOT to be kidding me.
APPRECIATE IT?!? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Don't like it kids? Tough ***** - move the ***** out and pay your own bills. Spoiled rotten *****.
- Hey_Vern, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7One more reason to show your kids that you actually care about them.
- jonish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Couldn't they just turn off their phone? Or leave their phone powered on somewhere "in bounds"? I don't know. Seems a little to easy to get around to me.
- toby34a, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5My mom never needed this when I was growing up- she would always turn up and find me wherever I was hanging out and being up to no good. She'd either call the house that I was at (where I didn't tell her I was), or drive and find me within like 5 minutes, scream at me, and I'd get in the car and be grounded for two weeks.
We don't need cell phone tracking, we just need more Irish Catholic mothers. - InsomniaSlim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"Hey guys, it's Saturday... so, David's house is the cell house. So, swing by his place, drop your cell in the mailbox and meet us at Stacey's!"
Stupid. With every option to monitor comes some resilient person with an alternative. Hell, it only took me 20 seconds to figure this one out. The same parents who "need" this technology are the same parents who plopped their kids down in front of the TV instead of tossing them outside to play, because it was easier to do that than watch them. - Oakes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Exactly, because right now perverts aren't capable of finding children. Now all it takes is hacking into a multinational corporation's computer systems guarded by well-paid IT technicians, and the whereabouts of these elusive beings will finally be uncloaked.
- Freekie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Why would they hate verizon? They are just offering a service, Sprint, nextel do the same thing, as well as i believe this service will take off.
But why would they hate verizon? - RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3lol @ retarded idea of a 5 year old with a cell phone, naturally the kids dealing drugs if he has a cellphone at that age.
- JC4P, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4If the online tracking gets hacked, boy are the rapists gonna have fun.
- EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3=/ That was my immediate thought, but if people are going to do it, they may as well make it useful at the same time. I also have a problem with giving a kid a cellphone which they don't need.
- hotdrop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yeah using tech to monitor your kids is not a good idea unless you know what your are doing and the people using this tech will probably have less knowlege then the kids they are trying to monitor. Hence falure.
- TheGreatGabbo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Buy one of those prepaid phones. Leave your other phone at home and forward your calls to the prepaid phone. Done. Now you can go out and have unprotected sex with hookers and freebase meth and your parents will think you're sleeping over at Johnny's house. Bazing!
- MrVisible, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3As long as it's impossible to afford a decent life, with those little luxuries like health insurance and food and housing, with a single average income, there will be these stopgap measures for overworked parents to use to try and keep track of their kids.
It's just the modern-day equivalent of being a latchkey kid. And speaking as a former latchkey kid, a lot of us didn't turn out too bad. - robwistar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2if this inspires my kid to figure out how to develop a unique linux distro to spoof his phone, nothing would make me prouder.
but he's still grounded. - bwana, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Technologically speaking I think its a mediocre idea at best - here in South Africa it has been marketed for a while and I dont know anyone who uses it.
As far as using technology to make sure my kids are safe - hell yeah. I'm a parent so its my responsibility. Their therapist can sort out their issues when they're older. Of course this is South Africa and safety is a priority. - athlonmj, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The 60 year old myspace rapists probably aren't too happy to hear this news.
- Oakes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5People like you honestly make me laugh and cry at the same time. Why is it that writers on digg always sound like they're the child these services are meant to restrict?
- mancat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2A cell phone is not a babysitter. I can understand how this would be useful, but it's no substitute for having a good relationship with your children, in which you can *trust* that they won't defy your wishes, and go gallavanting about town. That being said, I also understand that it's natural for even the best behaved kids to want to bend or stretch their parent's rules, and go where they're not supposed to go. I did that as a kid; we all did.
What guarantees are there that nobody else besides the parents will be able to track your children? What if your daughter happens to post her phone number on her Myspace, and some unsavory individual who wants to find her manages to get into the tracking web interface?
I honestly can't decide whether this is a bad or a good thing. - WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So what would the 'boundary setting' feature do? ...Maybe give the kid a shock, if they go to far away from home?
- fletchowns, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2More like "guess what mom I don't want to carry a cellphone I heard they give people tumors."
And then you save your lunch money for a prepaid. - looklikecontest, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"believe me either you have tech gadgets to protect your children from EVERYTHING or... you build trust and hope they do the right thing...."
Amen. That is truest truth ever stated about raising children. This service is going to make kids leave their phone at their friends house, so that they can't call their parents when they're to drunk to stand on their own feet.
Kids _will_ make choices on their own, and parents _will_ be unable to control it. - diggnationdevon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Than heres the sollution for kids: #buy your own phone #find a work-around #don't get Verizon then
- phonepimpbill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If parents can't trust their kids then they should take a look at themselves and the teaching methods they use. What is wrong with people these days? I personally think it's quite degrading to think of children as cattle or sheep like this.
- robwistar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1you make sure your kid goes out with a full charge. if he turns his phone off, you punish him.
my dad was real good at squelching my "workarounds" as a kid. - Hey_Vern, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is just one more tool for parents...not a complete solution. Its not going to be appropriate in all situations or even for all kids, for that matter. It certainly doesn't take the place of a caring parent's oversight. But it is an option that would seem to be useful in certain circumstances.
- Zippo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If my kids are anything like me, they'll be geeks and have limited social lives...
Part of me doesn't want that, the other wants to have geeky kids :/ - looklikecontest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You've made out with Bill Gates?
- dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I love this comment. My mother was THE SAME WAY! It's hilarious that I read this. Because my mom would do the same thing. If I was out too late. Mom would come find me. She had a 6th sense to know that I was up to something I shouldn't have been. And when I got home. I got a nice scolding and was on my way. Irish Catholic mothers ftw. I mean seriously, we didn't wind up too bad did we...right...? :P
- dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I recently posted an article about a company that opened in Delaware that lets you put a bumper sticker on your teens car...similar to those "How's My Driving Today?" stickers with the phone number to call, etc. This is definitely similar. Parents are taking advantage of technology to raise their children. This is similar to that "Firefly" phone that Verizon put out that the parent can program like....5 phone numbers into? And then pay $20-30 a month for it? First of all. If your child can't properly use a regular cell phone. Why should they need it?
Kid bothering you while you're trying to pay the bills, etc? Don't play with him, put him in front of the TV with a game controller in hand!
I agree with the others who say that these things should not be babysitters.
Verizon should put out ads for better parenting. Instead of using propaganda like that to bring up their quota. Because we all know that Verizon's service sucks anyway. At least from what I experienced. I changed services last year because I NEVER had a signal with them.
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Good digg though. :) - dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Next thing we know they'll be putting electric shock collars on our children like those dog fences.
"Johnny no don't go past the sidewalk...ZZZZT".
;) - dustedbunny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree. My children are going to grow up knowing how to fix their own teacher's computer...IN 3RD GRADE.
But hey. We all know that the geeks make out better in the end anyway. Look at Bill Gates! - redneckblues, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Slight deviations are part of growing up. If kids live in a locked down nanny state, who's to say that they will develop properly? As for the web-tracking deal, many people are notorious for picking weak passwords. If someone could track your 12 year old daughter by just typing "password", that would not be a good thing.
- neutrascrub, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2i work for VZW and this technology has been around for a while, they just decided to market this now, and yes it is really lame, if you are in an area where you are using another companys cellsite, then you cant track your kid,
Think about that one, if you kid is actualy lost, and outside of your normal calling area, then you are in the same boat that you started in.....
Also i haven't had one customer who was even interested in the last week or two since the launch...(oh yeah, Verizon wireless never gave information to the NSA it was Verizon land line in Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, so stop calling)
- anymir, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1*****, time to change to cingular.
- livestradamus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yeah but you know- many Americans will eat up the propaganda and go out and get this service.
- gamer82987, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1so i just gotta say
how could this make it any easier for a hacker/ pedophile to track your children? - RadiatedAnt, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4technically wouldnt that be 5 reasons not 1?
- EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3I don't see any reason why parents shouldn't be able to do this if they need to track their 5-9 year old kid. Any older than that and the kid will not appreciate it. At all.
- fletchowns, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Oakes, maybe we weren't just lame nerds like you and we liked to have fun when we were younger
- monergism, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3-------One more reason for your children to HATE you..--------
Mommy didn't pay your cellphone bill? Get a job and shutup.
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