Can you think of anything your iPhone can’t do?
Alright, perhaps it can’t do everything. iPhones can’t toast your morning breakfast or pilot your vehicle for you. Yet. All evidence points to the iPhone steadily increasing its relevance in our daily functionality as each year brings a new model with a wealth of features. But are all of these features good?
Despite all of the benefits of the iPhone, the device has also brought about a lot of concerns. Parents, in particular, worry what their children are doing on their iPhones. Who are they contacting? What are they searching for? What types of music are they listening to? How are they interacting on their social accounts?
And it’s not just parents who are worried about their children’s activity on their iPhones. Spouses wonder what their other half is using their phone to do. Even business owners are curious about their employees and their competitors.
In response to this desire for not-so-easily obtainable information, a new series of applications have been designed to provide parents, spouses and business owners with the answers they need. While these apps are controversial as some debate their morality and invasion of privacy, they’re also saving lives and informing parents in particular about the dangers their teenagers may potentially be facing.
How do we know if our teens are using their cell phones responsibly?
Types of Monitoring Apps
-Parental: Apps like TeenSafe, one app at the forefront of teen monitoring, allows worried or precautionary parents to access their teens cell phone content through their Apple ID. Since there’s no jailbreak required, the phone never has to physically leave their teen’s presence. It’s completely undetectable and aggregates all of a teens platforms (SMS, social platforms, call records) into one user-friendly page.
-Spousal: These apps have found their consumer base to be just what you would suspect it to be: abusive spouses tracking endangered spouses and spouses suspicious of an infidelious significant other. The legality that comes in to play is very straightforward: as long as that phone is on the monitoring spouses’ network plan, the monitoring is completely legal.
-Corporate: Monitoring apps are used in the corporate world as a form of assurance that employees are abiding by any binding privacy terms.
Reception of iPhone Monitoring Apps
Those againstmonitoring apps feel that these apps are an invasion of privacy and beneath a moral code and trust that should be present in a teen-parent, spouse-spouse, employee-employer relationship. The argument against that is that a choice is there, and that these apps are inherently not for everyone. But should, say, a parent suspect their child is in danger or mixing with the wrong crowd at school, an iPhone monitoring app will inform a parent of their child’s situation and present them with an opportunity to act how they see fit and take action before it’s perhaps too late. Wouldn’t you breach your child’s privacy if you knew they were in trouble, if you knew you could potentially save their life?
What can we do to keep our teens safe on cell phones and social media?
No matter what your feelings are about iPhone monitoring apps, it can’t be denied that their potential to protect and save lives. Apps like TeenSafe help parents keep a close eye on their children’s activity, which can allow them to protect their children from predators, cyber bullying and other types of dangerous activities. Because they have the ability to ward off potentially dangerous activity and scenarios, iPhone monitoring apps can quite literally save lives.
While we can’t (nor should we) prevent our teens from using cellular devices or interacting on social accounts, we can teach them how to use these platforms responsibly as well as ensure they’re doing so.
What’s your stance on monitoring apps?