8-1 Writing from Reading: Summary and Response

Part One

1. On the whole, we have become too reliant on technology.
2. It is not safe for children to play unsupervised in my city.
3. The world is a much more dangerous place than it was for our parents' or grandparents' generations.

Part Two

Technology and Safety: Is Fear Getting Under Our Skin?

If your child could wear an implant – a microchip that could tell a computer where he or she was at any time to within a few metres – would you buy it? After the horrific snatch of a three-year-old girl from her bed in recent news, the answer from many parents seems to be “yes”. Professor Kevin Warwick, who developed the technology that made it possible for the first child in Britain to volunteer to be “chipped”, has been bombarded with emails over the past few days from parents desperate to keep tabs on their children. It works, in theory, by sending a signal via a mobile-phone network to a computer that can identify the child’s location on an electronic map.

But there was the concern over the ethics of tagging our children’s bodies – some groups, including Barnardo’s and Kidscape as well as sections of the media, said that it was a neurotic overreaction that would not benefit children in the long run. So Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University, did not continue to develop the project nationally. “It caused such a backlash that we had to step back,” he says. “There were ethical concerns, and as a scientist you have to listen.” But he adds that the point of chipping is not that you would use it to track your children 24 hours a day – only in a worst-case scenario. “You would hope that it never gets used,” he says.

There are, however, many other child-tracking devices on the market that will almost certainly have a surge in sales over the next few weeks. They range from pay-as-you-go tracking services that follow the SIM card in your child’s mobile phone to electronic wristbands and specially tagged pyjamas. A Lancashire company, Connect Software, recently launched Toddler Tag, a child-safety monitoring system in which a tag smaller than a domino, which can take the form of a badge or bracelet or may be sewn into clothing, is allocated to each child. Another company has designed toddler “Smart-wear” – bibs, T-shirts, dungarees, hats and jackets – which comes ready-tagged and, according to marketers, may be useful not only to nurseries but to give parents an “electronic pair of eyes” when taking children to theme parks or on holiday. For older children there are established products such as Kids OK mobile phone tracking, i-Kids and Teddy-fone – a phone with a parent-activated child-monitor option that enables parents to listen in to what is happening around their child, an SOS button and a child-tracking service.

Some companies have shied away from such gadgets, fearing legal actions from parents should they fail for any reason, but others believe that the gadgets are destined to become part of normal parenting. The drawback with all these products, of course, is that an abductor could quickly dispose of mobile phones, satchels, clothing or wristbands. Wherify, an American company, offers a GPS locator watch that it claims is lockable and tamper-proof and may act as a visible deterrent. However, some parents may be uncomfortable about a highly visible device that an abductor would be desperate to remove.

The question that must also be asked is: should we be tagging and monitoring our children to such an extent? Is there a danger that we may lose perspective and fill our children with suspicion and fear? Indeed, could we become overreliant on technology and consequently more blasé about basic supervision? Michelle Elliot, director of the child protection charity Kidscape, says that she opposes the idea of microchip implants but understands why many parents want to use phone-tracking devices or wristbands. She worries, however, that such devices might hamper children’s development of a sense of independence. “It doesn’t teach them what to do in a problem situation – eg, if you are lost, go into a shop”, she says. “Having children relying on a parent getting to them and finding them doesn’t encourage independence.” Of implants, she says: “We don’t know what the physiological effects – and a child isn’t giving informed consent to what is a minor operation on their body.”

“We have 11 million children in the UK,” says Elliot. “For the past 25 years between five and seven children have been abducted and killed by a stranger each year, and that has not changed. Are we becoming paranoid to the point where we give children the message that life is so dangerous that they have to be tagged? There is no guarantee of your child’s safety. But the chances [of something like this happening] are so remote that you have to think about the message you’re giving them.”

However, Professor Warwick can see no serious health implications: the chip would be housed in a silicone capsule and it would be little different from having a cochlear implant. He says that if there was sufficient demand from the public and the initiative was backed by child-safety groups, it would not be difficult to make chip implants – about an inch long – available nationally in a relatively short period of time.

Review: Writing a Summary