Is it normal to think that this software is creepy?

65% Normal
6 Comments

I've found a lot of things about various software to spy on your children, and frankly it seems disturbing to me. In a reasonable amount, finding out what your children are doing is actually a very good thing, and can help you to teach them proper behavior. But then I found this software: http://www.pcpandora.com/children.php

To me this is just disturbing. A parent would have to spend hours every week to spy on their kids using this, and to me I can't see why a parent would need this. I understand that it can help with some legitimate things, like catching child predators, after they have already harrassed your children. But the thing is once you start using keyloggers to find out what your kids are doing, it just seems wrong. If you did this to an adult, I'm pretty sure it would be a crime, or at least a misdemeanor. It kind of reminds me of parents who schedule every hour of their childrens life, and force them to take up the cello or something. If you really care about the wellbeing of your child, you should let them have the occasional chance to be free and have fun, especially considering they are probably working hard at school. Also, if I found out my hypothetical children were doing something really horrible, like looking at some sort of wierd illegal porn, I'm not sure how I would react. Would you really want to know that? It's not like you can fix them. You could block the sites they visited, but you would always know deep down that they are in to some sort of horrible thing. I would rather go on thinking any children I had were good.

I've actually heard about people using this kind of software do make it so their children can't even play online games in their free time. Seems kind of domineering to me.

Voting Results
65% Normal
Based on 43 votes (28 yes)
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Comments ( 6 )
  • megadriver
    10 years ago

    Spying is shit! If you want your children to use the internet responsibly, you need to teach them! And they need to realize, that the internet is a whole world of information and weatlh, but also a dark and often disgusting place.

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  • [Old Memory]
    10 years ago

    I'm against spying too.

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  • Wuggums47
    10 years ago

    Note, just the reading any one elses emails thing is pretty creepy to me. I have nothing to hide in my emails, but would still feel violated if someone just went through them. If I knew someone was spying on me via software, I'd promptly remove the software.

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  • Avant-Garde
    10 years ago

    If it is illegal to spy on adults then why isn't it illegal to do the same with children? These are parents who are abusing the rights of their children and the roles of a parent.

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  • Legion
    10 years ago

    honestly, i think the people who use this software are paranoid. and yes, using it on an adult would be illegal

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  • RomeoDeMontague
    10 years ago

    Alright there is a few things here. First of all if your child is doing something evil like searching how to blow up a school you don't ignore that kind of bull shit you try to stop it. That is like saying "I found out my husband is a rapist but hey I going to let it continue since it disturbs me". I don't understand how you could just ignore that.

    As for the spying thing I do not agree with it either. However some parents like mine are overly possessive. I remember my father use to break into emails, my cell phone, my siblings phone, my mothers phone and emails. If they did not find anything useful to accuse you of (Which I erased all my messages since I knew he liked doing this) would accuse you based on anything.

    Like "Why does this number have another area code, or why do you have missed calls of an unknown number? Why is there people of the opposite gender in your phone I have not met yet? Am I going to have grand children early. Are you dealing drugs". For some reason was always super determined that we had drugs. Which I don't understand since I was always against drugs. I think they just wanted to make a bust on one of their kids so they could brag. Yeah guess what I did! Im such a cool dad! I busted my kids and taught them a lesson.

    In fact at one point I tossed one of my friends under the bus just to save myself. They were bothering me but it was not a big deal and I was ignoring them. However I needed an escape goat and I felt really bad afterwards.

    It made me incredibly paranoid and I was already paranoid to begin with. Not without reason though. I don't trust people for a reason and this kind of shit is why. So I got in the habit of hiding everything when I do stuff like go to the bathroom or take a shower since I feel people might look through it. I was not allowed to write down anything I felt either which was frustrating since I had no escape and had no way to vent.

    Also you don't need a child to catch predators. They make themselves known online all the time. However its kind of hard to report when you see sketchy stuff online. Since its not like its in the local police jurisdiction to deal with it. So you have to figure out where the internet police are and tell them about it. Also they all follow certain behaviour and you learn what people are safe to talk to.

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