Why every child needs a GPS cell phone

[FarCenter]

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)

Overprotective parents are keeping kids indoors. Now technology can set them free.
By Mike Elgan
August 22, 2009 06:00 AM ET http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137001/Why_every_child_needs_a_GPS_cell_phone

Computerworld - The root of America's health crisis is bad habits formed in childhood. To protect children from harm, parents are keeping kids indoors, where they get sick, watch TV and form lifelong habits of screen addiction, inactivity and junk-food overeating.

It's time to tag and release the children. We have the technology.

Seventy percent of American children don't get enough vitamin D, according to a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics. Vitamin D deficiency contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease, diabetes and obesity, bone disease, rickets and other major diseases.

Vitamin D isn't a vitamin, but a hormone produced by the body when skin is exposed to sunshine. You can supplement the diet with pills and fortified foods, but scientists say sunshine is best.

Another recent study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found another common behavior damaging children's health: watching TV.

For the first time ever, researchers are finding high blood pressure in children between the ages of 3 and 8, which they attribute to kids sitting around staring at screens. Kids studied spent an average of 5 hours a day doing "sedentary activities," mainly watching TV. The correlation is direct: The more TV time, the higher the blood pressure.

(snip)

[dipsydoodle]

1. Give them all implants instead

that way the government can watch them too. :sarcasm:

[Curtland1015]

2. We should all just give up and get the computer chips stuck in our asses.

It seems where we're all headed anyways.

I remember going out and playing. I came home when it got dark and all was well.

Not that I can EVER blame parents for worrying about their children. But there is a line that doesn't need to be crossed, IMO.

[cherokeeprogressive]

Our time to get home was when the street lights came on.

I could also hear my dad whistle from two blocks away.

[elocs]

18. I remember when I was a kid we beat ass home when the curfew whistle blew.

We were really worried about being caught out after curfew.

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. What an incredible idea!

Because we know the bad guys (or bad persons if you prefer) who snatch the kid will let them keep their cell phones and call home.

[Romulox]

4. Sorry, a GPS phone isn't going to cure the complex your smothering is giving junior...

:hi:

[elleng]

5. TAG and RELEASE your children!!!

:rofl:

[KittyWampus]

33. That was a DUZY if I ever read one!

[amborin]

6. some folks have really sucked up the advertising baloney! n/t

[seabeyond]

7. i have yet to lose my children. no.... i/they dont need. nt

[ejpoeta]

8. my sister got my nephew a cell phone.... but mostly because he rides his bike to school and home

she has thought of enabling the gps on it.... because he has been lying to her. I can't blame her in that instance... My daughter does NOT have a cell phone. though it seems everyone else does... her cousins... her classmates... but i can't see why she needs one at this point. she gets on the bus and goes to school, gets off the bus in the afternoon.... we live in the country and she can't just go over to a friends house. At some point I will I suppose.... give in and let her have one. but she is 10... and she does not need one.

[amborin]

10. good for you for resisting the advertising nonsense spewed by the profit mongers

[seabeyond]

11. my kids are working on 12 and 14.... they dont have cells

and they dont have issue that they dont have cells. i have a handful of reasons i dont get them one. we have talked about it and they understand why i dont. they do not feel deprived

son is stepping into highschool. there have been a couple events where i have given him mine. it is only a phone, nothing more. works well enough for us.

and we are (hubby) a high tech family. well, lol, not me.

[ejpoeta]

13. yeah, emily downloaded a bunch of games on my phone and we didn't know til we got the bill.

i told her that wasn't helping her cause. LOL! bob got them to take the charges off and we shut off downloads. I considered getting one to leave here at the house because we are cell only... and i wanted emy to be able to call me if she got home before i did. but we just got magic jack and that's good enough. The only reason i could see for her to have a cell is if she has after school activities or something where she may need to get ahold of me. i feel better knowing i am not the only parent who resists that.... but i also know that there are like no pay phones around here either.... but again, emily hasn't been out on her own where she had no access to a phone.

[Common Sense Party]

9. No, they don't need cell phones. They need parents who aren't

basket cases and will unplug the TV and the Playstation and send the kids outside.

[seabeyond]

12. ah, common sense. doesnt it feel good. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. You know why there are more abductions and crimes against kids today?

Because there are more of US today. The actual crime rate against kids is down from 25 years ago, but our population has doubled since 1970, and so of course we hear about more of the crimes.

Kids are in no more danger today than they were when we oldsters were cut loose after school and told to be home by dark. It is just the parents are more fearful, that's all.

[Golden Raisin]

16. Nobody had to worry about

razor blades and poisoned candy in Halloween bags when I was a kid. And for the older kids there was absolutely no such thing as drugs, or if there was, I and my friends never heard of them. I think today's kids live in a more dangerous environment than when I was a child.

[Romulox]

19. There were no such thing as drugs when you were kid? I bet "nice girls" never did *you know what*

before marriage back then, either. :silly:

[slampoet]

21. In Raisin's world Birth Control was invented only in 1960 with the pill.

(never mind the ancient Chinese and Arabs)

[Golden Raisin]

26. I grew up in a small town

in the 1950s. It was a much more innocent time.

[Romulox]

27. YOU were more innocent. "Time" was not. People were having sex, and doing drugs back then.

In YOUR town. Guaranteed.

[slampoet]

20. It has been documented time and time again that there were no razor blades before candy companies

started spreading the rumors. Any isolated incident of razor blades you have heard about was someone copycatting an URBAN MYTH. It has also been documented that MANY of the isolated incidents were actually kids trying to get older people in trouble because they felt ripped off by getting healthy homemade snacks instead of corporate candy.

PS - Many even modest sized cities had drugs in the 1920's so that would make you what, 107 years old?

[UnseenUndergrad]

22. 2 things:

1. the razor thing is mostly a myth (alright, one time, but that's about it).

2. Ever heard of a little thing called "Mom & Dad's Drinks Cabinet"? Or bumming smokes under a bridge?

[KittyWampus]

34. are you seriously comparing bumming a smoke under a bridge to doing meth or xtc?

[UnseenUndergrad]

36. Well, they said "drugs"...

they didn't specify which ones.

To which I say that kids back then my have also been abusing cough syrup, sniffing chemicals and other things they could afford through various means...

Not to mention the grown-up Valium addictions.

Let's just say that every age has it's problems.

[SPedigrees]

28. I agree. One thing that made it safer was a community network of stay-at-home-moms

(although they were just called moms back then) looking out for ALL the neighborhood kids. If you got caught in the rain walking home, it was likely one of your mom's friends would drive by and give you a ride. And it worked the other way too, if a neighbor spotted you doing something you shouldn't, your parents would hear about it.

[seabeyond]

17. i just dont believe that. sorry. nt

[Mariana]

25. Do you believe what they the FBI and the DOJ say about it?

"The primary conclusion of the study was that child abductions perpetrated by strangers rarely occur."

http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0908/chapter3.htm

Scroll down to the chart for a quick look at the actual numbers, but the whole report is worth reading.

[seabeyond]

30. i was speaking to the posters comment about crime against child down.

i am not concerned about abductions. as a mom i would tell myself when i let kids walk to park by themselves, .... odds are so very very small. i could risk it, regardless of thought being there.

but the poster was saying that crimes against children are down and i dont believe that

[stray cat]

15. Easy to throw away or discard a phone - I don't consider a child safe because he has a phone

[slampoet]

23. Sorry to put any idea in people's heads but it is pretty easy to line a van with

a certain material to make it cell phone proof.

[LWolf]

24. No, thanks.

My 9 yo grandson thinks he ought to have a phone because other kids his age in the neighborhood do.

He has a street full of kids to play with, where there are plenty of parents around keeping an eye on things.

A park a block away; ditto.

Nobody is going to take on the expense to outfit this kid with a phone so that he can become addicted to texting and tweeting before he even hits double digits.

Phones as a safety feature, or tracking feature? What adolescent hasn't already figured out how to get around that?

[riverdeep]

29. I'm really of two minds about this...

There are incidents from my childhood where a cell or a panic button would really have been useful. I remember a bunch of us walking down a city street and my friend encountered someone who he had done wrong in the past, and we watched as he was beaten to within an inch of his life, all we could do was watch because the bigger kids held us back. He had fractures and was in the hospital.

Yet, children need to create their own world as well, a world completely and tightly supervised by adults doesn't actually do kids any favors, and might significantly influence culture at large when these kids grow up. A world where adults don't really understand risk and need to feel 'safe' always. Life isn't safe, period. For anyone, anywhere, anytime. Safety is good, but it's an ideal that needs to be juxtaposed next to other considerations.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. FarCenter, please be aware of the rules about quoting copyrighted material

"Do not post entire copyrighted articles. If you wish to reference an article, provide a brief excerpt and include a link to the original source. Generally, excerpts should not exceed three or four paragraphs."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules_detailed.html

Thank you.

[SoCalDem]

32. Just take 'em to the vet, & get 'em chipped.

:rofl:

GPS in the car, for teens, is not a bad idea though "evilgrin:

[Vickers]

35. I'm actually hoping a couple of mine run away.

:spank:

If you try to hold them too close while they're young, they end up not visiting you when you're old.

That's my theory anyway.

[a la izquierda]

38. LOL

that's too funny. My mom was really strict with me, so I paid her back by moving across the country when I graduated from college. Now I live a two days drive from her, which is a little better.

[a la izquierda]

37. When I was a kid...

back in the '80s/'90s, none of the neighborhood kids were allowed to stay inside if it was nice out. We'd be out all day, break for lunch and then have to be back by dinner and/or dark. After school, we did our homework and went right outside. I didn't have video games or a computer and I wasn't allowed to watch TV until after 7pm.
I didn't get abducted.