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♦ INTRODUCTION TO PART II
Do You Know Where Your Children Are?
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vast new array of surveillance technologies has become a taken-for — granted feature of our daily lives. Cameras tape our behavior on the street, smart cards record our purchases at the grocery store, and our employers can, if they choose, keep track of the time we spend playing solitaire on the computer.1 Not surprisingly, these new technologies have been subject to considerable analysis.2 By and large, however, the family and its internal dynamics have been ignored in these studies.5 When the surveillance literature does address the family, it generally assumes what I call “surveillance creep”: that is, writers suggest that the new technologies of surveillance are insinuating themselves into our everyday lives and are used (willy-nilly) by individuals at home as well as by governments and organizations. William Staples provides an excellent example of this perspective in his book Everyday Surveillance: Vigilance and Visibility in Postmodern Life. Staples adopts a Fou — cauldian framework to describe what he calls “meticulous rituals of power”:
These are knowledge-gathering activities that involve surveillance, information and evidence collection, and analysis. I call them meticulous because they are “small” procedures and techniques that are precisely and thoroughly exercised. I see them as ritualistic because they are faithfully repeated. . . . And they are about power because they are intended to discipline people into acting in ways that others have deemed to be lawful or have defined as appropriate or simply “normal.”4
In discussing further what he means, Staples argues that we all engage in these meticulous rituals of power; in fact, he suggests, “we should ‘forget Big Brother’” because “surveillance power is bi-directional, and is more-often — than-not triggered by us.”5
Staples moves freely among the practices of surveillance by the state (e. g., wiretapping), the market (e. g., customer cards), institutions (e. g.,
programs that enable parents to see what homework has been assigned), and the family (e. g., home drug testing). In mixing and matching in this way, Staples encourages us to believe that these various “meticulous rituals of power” are similar in their effects; he further encourages us to believe that all parents eagerly (and perhaps thoughtlessly) adopt the available technologies to protect and discipline (in the broadest sense) their children. Other writers, however, imply that more elite parents will be especially inclined to engage in some of these “meticulous rituals of power.” This is true of the sociologists Dawn Moore and Kevin Haggerty, who argue that home drug testing is aimed particularly at the well-off parents who can afford to pull these items off the shelf of the drug store, and it is also true of the geographer Cindi Katz, who focuses on devices such as nanny cams.6
Both sets of assumptions are definitively challenged in this book. In the next several chapters I explore a number of new technologies for connecting with, constraining the actions of, and spying on children. I’ve divided these into three separate sets. The first set I call “connection” devices (chapter 5). This set is the least restrictive one (from the point of view of the child); it includes two relatively new devices, baby monitors and cell phones.7 Each of these devices enables a parent to gather information about a child when the parent is not in that child’s immediate presence, but neither makes a permanent record of that information and neither in and of itself constrains behavior. Rather, each provides a kind of connection across distance. To be sure, these two devices differ in significant ways: not only are they used with children at very different stages of development, but children are generally unaware of baby monitors and they do not need to participate in any way for them to be effective. On the other hand, and much to the regret of many of the interviewed parents, unless cell phones have a GPS attached to them and are turned on, they do not provide an accurate indicator of a child’s location, and cell phones only work as a device for obtaining information if children choose to answer them. s
The second set, what I call devices of “constraint,” can actually prevent behavior and, more specifically, the behavior of physical or virtual “wandering” (chapter 6). A device known as a “child locator” alerts parents to literal wandering. An advertisement perhaps describes this device best:
The BrickHouse Child Locator by BrickHouse is a device that lets you keep a constant watch on your child in public areas. This device works by attaching a tag to your child’s clothes or shoes to work as a homing device should your child leave the safety zone, the BrickHouse Child Locator will alert you when that happens. The portable tracking device will beep, vibrate, and visually lead you to your (tagged) child quickly and easily. This device also comes with a “panic button” on the homing tag for your child to use in the event of an emergency.9
A variety of these devices are available through Amazon. com. They are advertised as being appropriate for use with young children; they are also advertised for use with people with memory problems (such as elderly people with Alzheimer’s disease) and for use with older children who might have difficulty learning appropriate rules (such as children with what are called “autism spectrum” disorders).10
Other devices are designed to deal with wandering in the media and in virtual space. Parents can rely on a V-chip to block specific channels or programs on a television.11 Parents can also install software on the computer to deny access to specific Internet sites.12 In contrast to the cell phones and baby monitors, devices of constraint directly stop behavior. And two of these—filters on the computer and blocks on the television—operate without ongoing parental intervention.
The last set of devices do not prevent behavior but rather gather information that can then be used to make disciplinary decisions (chapter 7). This set includes GPS tracking/speed devices installed in a car. Originally for fleet management, these devices sense movement and report where a car is and how fast it is going. These reports can be sent electronically to a distant computer.13 Two sites explain these services; the second site offers concealment as a special feature:
The Vehicle Tracker monitors vehicle location, speed and other parameters via global positioning satellites (GPS) and makes reports when pre-set limits are exceeded using an integrated cellular device to parents’ phone and email. A secure, password-protected website allows you to view vehicle driving history in great detail. This history of driving behavior includes maps
and reports showing where the vehicle has been at specific times, at what speed it has been driven and related information that helps parents monitor and enforce the agreements they have established with their youngsters.14
SafeTrak is a real-time web based system utilizing GPS Technology and your web browser. The GPS System is reasonably priced with a low flat monthly fee and no term contract, is simple to install and will automatically update according to the service plan. . . that best suits your requirements. There are no additional charges for reports, web access, e-mail alerts, etc. One low monthly fee allows you unlimited use of everything the GPS Vehicle Tracking System provides. There is no cost for mapping and no software required. Mapping is updated every 6 months and software is constantly improved at no additional cost to you. SafeTrak GPS System provides fast, easy access to key information such as where you’re [sic teen is, where they’re going, where they have been, and how fast they’re driving. The Teen Driver Tracking Device is easy to install and maintain. The SafeTrak unit and antenna can both be easily concealed for covert operation.15
Recently, a father used the SafeTrak device successfully to challenge his teen’s speeding ticket, claiming that his GPS system was more accurate than the police radar gun. This incident led to widespread publicity about this device. There has also been publicity as insurers have been offering this device to parents.’6
I include within this last set of surveillance devices a mechanism for keeping a record of keystrokes on the computer and home drug tests, the latter of which checks for a range of legal and illegal substances. These also are relatively recent innovations with their own promotional material designed to attract parents eager to control their children’s actions.17 Home drug testing sites often appear to be “merely” an informed and concerned agency or individual who has the best interests of parents and teens at heart. For example, the website drugtestyourteen. com shows a picture of three young girls sitting on a bench in the classic monkey “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” pose; they are giggling and happy. The text underneath reads,
Parents—You really can prevent teen drug, alcohol, and tobacco use. Quick, accurate, inexpensive, and private in-home tests. Give your teen another reason to say NO.
Linzy, Melissa, & Delaney want to remind parents to keep their eyes and ears open, and to communicate even when your kids act like they are not listening.
The site then seeks both to arouse fears about the possibility that your child could be using drugs and to offer a way to find out if that is the case. The promotional material suggests making teens complicit in the testing:
The prospect that your child could be using drugs is one of the scariest things imaginable. None of us ever wants to believe that it could be “our child.” I know because I have been there. My teen daughters and I have found one way for parents to take loving control. We offer several inexpensive, accurate, FDA-cleared drug, alcohol, and tobacco tests that are easy to use in the privacy of your own home. Whether you are trying to prevent drug use, discover possible drug use, stop current use, or just be reassured that a teen is on the right road, home testing will help.
Once surveillance devices have been implemented and information is gathered—about how fast and where a child has driven, about what messages a child has sent or has written in a file on the computer, or about what substances are in a child’s body—the parent has to decide what to do with that information.
Two of these devices can be used without a child’s awareness (and in fact these are advertised as offering “stealth” use); most drug tests require some cooperation from a teen (i. e., the provision of a urine sample), although some use hair samples, which, presumably, can be acquired without a child’s cooperation or knowledge.
In what follows, I explore how existing notions of the appropriate relationship between parents and children shape perceptions of the desirability of these new technologies (and, in some cases, perceptions of their effects as well). As parents talk about their responses to these options, they reveal how the two different styles of parenting—parenting out of control and parenting with limits—are enacted. My argument steers clear of a strict technological determinist position that might view the technologies themselves as the cause of specific social relations; rather, I emphasize how social relations enter into evaluations and use of new technologies.18 Of course, I also recognize that
causality rarely runs only one way: some of these technologies have already helped to shape parental assessments of the best way to raise their children. As I investigate these new technologies, the mystery of my students’ conversations with their parents, with the cell phones glued to their ears, begins to dissolve.