Tech for Teens

We will not be buying smart phones for our children.  We will also not be allowing them unsupervised use of technology.  In addition, we are teaching them good manners and responsibility.

The question of whether parents should buy cell phones for their teens has been a hot topic off and on over the last decade and a half.  Many parents see a high potential for abuse and a low value to giving teens mobile communication devices.  Their arguments seem to be justified by the fact that cell phones have become a major distraction to students in class, and they are almost exclusively used for socialization.  The other side of the argument claims that the socialization itself has a very high value.  They also claim that teens need to be able to contact parents at any time for personal safety.  Both sides have some truth to their arguments, however, as cell phones have begun to proliferate among teens, we have gained a great deal of additional data.

Over the last 6 months, I have read at least 6 articles on how mobile communication devices are used by teens for bullying, revealing private information, and even for distributing child pornography (typically images of other under-aged students).  This has become very common.  Recently, yet another anonymous communication app has been condemned for its use in high school bullying and distribution of child pornography intended to defame its subjects.  This is a huge problem.  In fact, it has gotten so big that the FBI has gotten involved in multiple cases, and Apple even temporarily took one of these apps off of their app store, while the creators made some changes to make bullying and other illegal uses more difficult.  Some parent groups are even petitioning Apple to remove the app permanently.

Here is what I get out of this: The average teen is not responsible enough to trust with a smart phone.  I don't care if the justification is personal safety; a teen who deliberately compromises the safety of others with a mobile communication device should not possess it.  The problem, however, is not the teens themselves.  The people who are responsible for the behavior of those teens should bear a large portion of the responsibility.  Parents have the final say in whether a child younger than 18 years old possesses anything, including a smart phone.  Those parents have a moral and legal responsibility to provide oversight.  Before buying or allowing a teen to buy a mobile communication device, parents need to seriously assess the maturity of that child.  If that child is not mature enough to handle the responsibility, the parents should forbid the device, and they should enforce that decision.  When parents do not do this, and someone else is harmed by their child's poor choices, the parents should be charged with neglect, and they should be held responsible for the crimes committed due to that negligence.  The default should not be permission.  The default should be not to give a teen a cell phone.  Truly responsible parents should not give their teens mobile communication devices unless those teens have shown an unusually good level of responsibility and civility.  If your teen still calls people names or is heavily involved in teen drama, you can be certain that a smart phone will become a weapon for harming others in the hands of your teen.

Parental oversight is essential in the appropriate and legal use of technology.  Parents should not be allowing their teens to use these tools unsupervised.  Parents who do allow their teens to use communication technology without direct supervision should check histories, texts, and any other logs to make sure their teen is using the technology responsibly.  Parents should also forbid the use of anonymous communication that does not store logs.  Is this an invasion of privacy?  No!  Parents have a legal responsibility for the behavior of their minor children.  Part of this responsibility includes prying to make sure their children are not doing things that will harm others or themselves.  So long as a parent is a legal guardian of a child, that child legally owns nothing.  Even if the child pays for with money he or she earned, the property belongs to the parent until legal guardianship ends.  This means that a parent has every right to confiscate a cell phone that is being misused.  In fact, a parent has a responsibility to do so.  Teens are going through a period of brain development that leaves them especially vulnerable to making poor choices.  Part of the responsibility of parents is to help get their teens through this time without making choices that will cause substantial harm to themselves or to others.

Looking at the outdated arguments that are still used to justify permitting or forbidding cell phones for teens, here is my conclusion:  Cell phones are a major distraction in school (not just classes).  They do have the potential to help with social things, however, their potential to cause massive social harm is extremely high in the hands of a person that does not yet have well developed reasoning skills.  Personal safety is the only argument in favor of permission with any strength behind it.  There are, however, alternatives.  "Stupid phones" are still readily available.  Our plan is to buy a TracFone (or some similar pre-paid phone) model that only does calls (and perhaps texts) for our children.  When they go out somewhere that we think a phone would be a good idea, they will be issued a phone (we may need more than one, as our children are close together in age).  When they return, they will give the phone back, and we will log the time spent.  If any time was spent on calls to anyone but us, the child will be grounded.  This will not be a social phone.  It will be for communication with parents exclusively (though, emergency provisions, like 911 calls, will also be permissible).  The phone will not be a smart phone, and if we can manage it, it will not have internet access at all.  If our children want to buy cell phones with their own money (and pay their own subscription fees), we will only permit it once they are 16 years old, on the condition that we are to review all histories each day, and then only once we have evaluated their capacity for responsible use of the device.  Some might consider this policy restrictive and invasive.  Perhaps it is.  As a parent, with a responsibility to both my children and general society, this is my job.  If you are a parent, this is your job as well.

This epidemic of electronic bullying and crime by teens is ultimately the responsibility of their parents.  I sincerely hope to see FBI investigations on this problem end with massive fines for the parents who are ultimately responsible for allowing their teens to harm others.  A parent who, through negligence, allows their teen to perpetrate this sort of crime is a failure as a parent.  I do recognize that some teens will be sneaky and circumvent even the most strict parenting (and I do not condemn parents who are a victim of this), but when parents allow their minor children to harm others or themselves without even trying to be responsible, they are just plain bad parents.

What this comes down to is that the group against giving teens cell phones was right.  The potential for harm is far greater than the minor social advantages.  I am sure there are some teens responsible enough to have their own cells phones.  Ultimately, this should be up to the judgment of the parents.  Understand, however, that going easy on this judgment to appease your teen may turn out to be a massive parental failure to both your teen and to society as a whole.

(And, if parents will not step up and take responsibility for this problem, I will become a strong proponent of requiring licenses, at least for teens, to possess mobile communication devices.  And, as a supporter of free exchange of information, I really do not want to do that.  I am already opposed to allowing students to have cell phones in public schools.)

iPhone without cash?

(See revision at end of article)

So, I've heard rumors that Apple iPhones cannot be bought with cash. The rumors say that the purchase of an iPhone must be paid with check, debit, or credit card. Since when has the government rescinded the part of US cash currency that says it is “legal tender for all debts, public or private”? Take a bill out of your pocket, right now, and look at the front face. Near the top left corner you will notice several lines of small text. Read it. The last time I checked, there was only one single instance in which a person or business could refuse US tender. This instance is that more than 25 cents in pennies is not considered legal tender.

The rumor say the reason that Apple has made this policy is so that an iPhone sale can be easily traced. The intent is to prevent iPhones bought in the US from being illegally exported. While I understand their concern, it disgusts me that they are willing to enforce policies on their sellers which are totally and entirely illegal. What disgusts me worse is that their vendors actually follow the illegal policies. If I actually wanted an iPhone, I would love to go try to buy one, then sue the vendor when they refuse to take my cash. Unfortunately, I avoid supporting unethical companies and even if Apple was ethical before this (they were not, just for the record), this single act is totally unethical.

Now for the illegal export thing. Since when did a seller have any control over how a buyer uses the product he bought? How is it that our nation's laws allow a company to tell us what we are allowed to do with something that we have bought and paid for? First, this is not about software patents (although, it applies equally), this is about physical products that a US citizen has bought in the US and has sole ownership of. An Apple iPhone is such a product, just as a bag of marbles, or a pack of baseball cards is. If Apple can restrict the resale of the iPhone outside the US, then Fleer can restrict the trade and sale of the baseball cards it prints and sells. Imagine someone getting sued for trading a shooter for three steelies (marbles). Now, you may say that the marbles are just simple pieces of glass and the cards, just paper and ink, but isn't the iPhone just plastic, sand, and metal? How does making it into a more complex product suddenly give the seller rights over it, even after the seller no longer owns the product? When does a marble become so complex that the seller can restrict resale or trade of it?

Now for the root of the problem. I have an European friend that took his wife to Egypt for their honeymoon. They bought a piece of art from a street vendor while they were there. Fortunately they had hired a guide. The shop's posted price for the object was equivalent to between $25-$30 US dollars. The guide was able to secure the art work for them for only $2.50 US. This is very common in foreign countries. Foreigners are regularly charged much higher prices than the locals. Tourists often hire guides, because the local guide knows what the actual value of the merchandise is and can help the tourists get more reasonable prices. Increasing prices for foreigners is common, even in countries where haggling is not common.

In the US, it is different. Nobody in the US haggles anymore. Most stores are not run directly by the owner and the employees are not authorized to sell products for less than their marked prices. Even the small businesses that are run directly by the owner are not likely to haggle. You will probably get a strange look, or even get kicked out, if you try. Ironically, US citizens get ripped off regardless of where in the world they are. In foreign countries, we get the tourist prices, and in the US, the corporations charge much more than they need to. Want evidence of this?

Have you ever heard of an “international edition” of a book? How about region codes for DVDs? These are mechanics used primarily by US industry for ripping off US citizens. DVD region codes exist so that media producers can charge different prices in different regions of the world, without having to worry about lower priced regions selling DVDs cheap to higher priced regions (DVD players are programmed to only read DVDs from the region the player was sold in). International editions of books are printed with a warning inside the front cover stating that it is illegal to sell the book within the US. Again, the intent is to prevent to resale of the book within the US.

Now, it may seem nice that these companies are scaling prices based on the ability of people to afford the product. In reality, if the company is selling the product for $10 cheaper outside the US, they are extorting an extra $10 out of US citizens. They would not be selling the product outside the US at all if the sales were not generating profits. This means that they are tacking on an extra $10 to their profit margin, to sell the product in a location that is cheaper and easier to reach, because we can afford it. In other words, they are ripping us off. What's worse is, our own government is helping them to do it.

The fact that US law allows a company retain control over the resale of products that they have already sold is disgusting. Actually, this is playing a large part in the economic issues currently plaguing the US. Consider, the exchange rate for money is supposed to reflect the actual value of the money in the countries in question (more often than not, the exchange rate is based more on what banks are willing to trade than what the money is actually worth). If a DVD in the US costs $15 US (this is pretty common right now) and the same DVD is priced at the equivalent of $10 US in a foreign country, that will drive the value of that country's money up, at the same time as driving the value of the US dollar down. (And note that if the manufacturer adjusts prices to reflect changes in exchange rate, this effect is amplified.) Same thing with any product that is priced differently based on location. If the price is cheaper in one place than another and the currencies used are different, the value of the currency of the lower priced region will increase and the value of the currency of the higher priced region will decrease. So, not only are these companies ripping us off directly, they are lowering the value of our money indirectly. Again, our own government is helping them to do it. (Oh, and note that by refusing to accept cash tender, Apple is directly lowering the value of our currency.)

Now, I would like to see the laws that protect to people enforced. The government has been protecting businesses like Apple from minor losses for much too long. I want to see Apple get their pants sued off over this. I also would like to see every vendor that has enforced this illegal policy pay as well. If a company does not know the laws of the country they are operating in, the should not be there. Fines for everyone! (And not these puny ones, real fines, with lots of zeros. We need to start paying off the national debt.)

Lord Rybec


Ok, I am wrong. It was the iPad. Furthermore, Apple has changed their policy as a result of complaints: See article here

Still, Apple should at least get fined, as they did break the law by refusing to accept legal tender as payment.