The Undercover Parent Summary

According to guardchild.com, 17% of teens surveyed stated that they received an email or an online message with photos or words that made them feel uncomfortable, and only 7% of parents were aware of this. In an article titled “The Undercover Parent” by Harlan Coben, it explains about the idea about parents using spyware on their children. Everything a child types can already be seen by the world, even pedophiles or online bullies. Coben supports the idea; however, he feels that showing the article to a child is better because it can lead to a to a conversation about concerns the parents may have. Parents should monitor their children’s online behavior because they want to keep their children safe from cyber bullies and pedophiles.

In Harlan Cobens article “The Undercover Parent” (2008), he states that spyware is a good thing to have on your childs computer, and at first I disagreed. But, after a lot of thought, I now agree with Cobens point of view.

In the article, "The Undercover Parent" by Harlan Coben, the author talks to the audience about why he thinks all parents should watch their children on the internet. Coben uses pathos more than anything else when trying to reach out to his readers. Coben uses some tactics to get the reader to trust what he says. One specific tactic is that he acknowledges the reader's feelings. He also manipulates the reader by reducing the negative feelings that they have when they read this article and replace them with positive feelings. Then he is finally increasing the fear enough that the reader will feel obligated to put spyware on their kid's computer so that they can protect them from the horrible thing found on the internet.

The title of the essay is The Undercover Parents, which was written by Harlan Coben. The essay was published on the 16th of March, 2008. In the essay, Coben presents his main ideas and thoughts regarding the use of spyware by parents to monitor children. He says that installing a spyware on the computer used by children, especially those in the teenage years, can help parents track what actually their children view on computers. In the essay, the author says that while it is quite hard to follow up on children while they are away from home and this causes parents to be so worried, installing spyware on the computers in the house really helps. Coben says that the program allows parents to keep track of the children

Every day teenagers use the internet, whether it’s on their phones or on the computers at school or at home. Their lives are practically centered around it. They’re connecting with each other on social media such as: Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and even online video games, and this has is benefits, but it can also have some negative and possibly dangerous situations. The internet is not a safe haven for anyone or anything. In the article “The Undercover Parent” the author, Harlan Coben, makes the argument that spyware is alright to be used by parents on their kids computers as long as the parents are using the software responsibly. I agree with Coben’s statements because of his solid arguments of dangerous conversations, privacy, and bullying.

Some parents believe that they should put spyware on their child’s computer to monitor them. They want to make sure their child is safe and not talking to a stranger in a chat room or being bullied online. Part of being a parent is to make sure their child is safe and protected, that is one of

Coben uses reasoning by frequently bringing up the different issues with spyware, only to refute them and strengthen his argument. He possesses a more lenient perspective on what should be considered safe on the Internet and what should not be. For example, he argues that not all of a child’s conversations need to be considered and neither does the issue of pornography. Coben argues that pornography is a natural interest amongst many teenage boys. Thus, he persuades his reader to be more open about spyware through his lenient position on spyware and by addressing almost all of the issues that come to a reader’s mind. Coben both establishes his credibility and appeals to his audience’s emotions through his use anecdotes. For example, he includes how his friend had a talk with his daughter after monitoring her using drugs and having an affair with her dealer, which ended up well and put his daughter in the right direction. Coben also uses personal anecdotes to appeal and connect with audience. For example, Coben uses a personal anecdote of how he used to look at magazine from Playboy to relate to the audience of teens, who would be against spyware. Coben establishes a well-rounded argument; although, I do feel that installing spyware on a child is still very wrong to do, I have somewhat become more open and can see why some would consider

In the fifth paragraph of his article, Coben contends for and against "today's overprotective parents." He shows them as intrusive, unreasonable, and domineering as he paints the picture of a mother finishing her teen's college application or a furious father quarreling with his child's coach. So does Coben agree that today's parenting styles can be over the top and invasive? Not exactly. Coben then switches tones towards these practices and basically argues that this idealism might as well extend into children's web utilization as well. He doesn't just address the restricting thought here, he rather taunts these

In the article Let Kids Run Online written by Danah Boyd, Boyd questions whether parents monitoring their children's online social life is a good or a bad thing. Many parents can agree that monitoring their phones and computers is actually a good thing. It can keep children out from harm’s way, it would be easier for parents to find things out that their kids don’t feel comfortable to actually say out loud, and it could possibly bring them closer together by having them be so close.

In Harlan Coben’s article “The Undercover Parent,”(2008) he claims that parents should result to putting spyware on you tennager’s devices. Coben supports his claim by first stating “At first I was repelled at this invasion of privacy. Now, after doing an fair amount of research, I get it”, after a dinner he just had with friends who told Coben that they have put spyware on their teenager’s device, and how it kept him out of trouble. Coben’s purpose of this article is try to persuade parents that you should download spyware on your children’s devices yet, in order for Coben to get his purpose, he had to do some research and ask around for incidents that had occurred to his friends.. The audience is intended for parents of those who concern

Coben states that parents should put spyware on their kids computers, but shouldn’t be nosey and be completely responsible look for anything hazardous. However I disagree and believe teenagers should be trusted with online responsibilities. One reason for this is a third party (the vendor) makes a record of what you do ,but the author did not make note this or did not even know which in my opinion is worst than a faceless bureaucrat because that third is likely to release it to other parties such as google or other big corporations.

In his essay, “The Undercover Parent,” Harlan Coben argues in the favor of the use of parental spyware on children’s computers. Coben’s claim for his argument is that by installing the spyware unto a child’s computer, you have the ability to log every keystroke your child makes and thus be better equipped to protect your child from harmful situations. Coben acknowledges parent’s hesitation and repulsion of spyware, and clearly defines for his audience what spyware is exactly and how it operates. The author reminds his audience with logical appeals that most parents do already monitor their children’s day to day lives, and that spyware simply offers a new way of protection. Coben then lists his audience’s common counter arguments such as simply

In Harlen Coben’s “The Undercover Patent,” Coben argues of being in favor of implementing spyware to the children’s computer. He claims that this protect their children so they could monitor their action when they are browsing the web. He is also convincing many parents to do this by telling letting them know that its not hard to place spyware on children computer. Also that this is not a bad idea after all we are their parents not unknown entity like the government. Coben also argues that this not as bad because the internet is already visible to the public. Therefore, this concept is to just basically have an eye on their children so they could protect them from cyberbullying and pedophiles. He also stated that he knows that children will

It is not about being in every single conversation when your kids social media. Coben is not suggesting to eavesdrop on your kids conversations,

To begin with, parents spy on their kids so they could know what they bring doing during their days.In the article the author states that “61 percent of parents checked the websites that their teenagers visited, 60 percent visited their social media accounts and 48 percent looked through their phone calls and messages. Basically, what is this quote is saying is that parents are tracking their kids due to their websites that they go thru their cell phones who they being texting or calling and they social media such as facebook instagram. This is important because, it shows that parents are very careless for their child. So, if