In this episode, a mom gets the power she thinks she wants. A chip embedded in her daughter's head allows her -- mom -- to see everything her child sees, and even pixilate out anything disturbing her daughter might encounter, like blood, or an argument.
This is the kind of power tech is actually close to giving parents today. Already there are apps that let you watch on a map where your child is walking, see what they're looking at online, read their texts, scan their photos and even tell their temperature and blood pressure from afar. A new app being developed by a company called Kiddo promises to compare the food your child eats with the exercise their Fitbit shows them getting. If calories consumed are greater than calories burned, the app then lets the parent prescribe a certain amount of extra exertion: "That sundae means you have to do 23 more jumping jacks, Olivia!" We are told we can and must control everything our children do/see/think/worry about and, apparently, eat.
Parents are just starting to understand that with great power -- in fact, with superpowers never before afforded to human beings -- comes great angst. After all, if we CAN watch everything our kids do -- must we? What about our relationship to the child? What about trust? Privacy? Our own happy memories of time we spent far beyond our parents' eyes and ears? Are our kids our prisoners, to be constantly supervised? Our patients, to be constantly monitored? Or are they our pets -- beloved, but wholly dependent on us?
That all feels bad. And yet: What if something "bad" happens and we could have prevented it with more vigilance?
That's the push the marketers are giving parents: Now that you CAN see all and prevent all -- why wouldn't you?
Kudos to Arkangel for showing us, in Gothic detail, exactly where that could lead.
And let's hear it for trust.
