The wonders of technology

I think that you can easily say technology is a blessing and a curse. Yesterday, my oldest daughter was traveling home from a school trip to New York City and, thanks to an app, I could see exactly where that bus was and time my departure from work so I would pick her up at exactly the right time. It was a good feeling of safety and security. Had I been tracking her doing something else, someone may say it's more like stalking.
Do you track your kids online and know where they are 24/7? Is that intrusive? I mean, they are your kids. They live under your roof and may be a driving a car that you pay for so is it really an invasion of privacy or more like you checking up on them to see that they are doing okay. I'd like to equate it to old-school neighborhoods. If you were out on the street chasing a cat and your mom wasn't there to see it but your neighbor was, you could be darn sure the neighbor would yell at you. So, if I'm not there to watch my kids, I don't mind that app being the neighbor who smacks my kid in the back of the head when she is screwing up.
I have eased up on monitoring my children's use of technology because I don't want them to think I'm too strict and then hide things from me and be deceitful. But, I've noticed that my easing up has allowed them to feel freedom that I'm not really willing to give them. To me, that freedom seems to come with some stupidity.
Teenagers, of course, know everything. They think they don't need to be told what is right or what is wrong. Unfortunately, that "wisdom" doesn't always include them making the best decisions in life or saying the smartest things in the world. Kids say and do stupid stuff all the time. But now they do that stupid stuff while their friends record it. And then their friends post it online. And all of a sudden, something really stupid is now something that is really stupid forever.
Even if a kid knows they are being recorded, I'm sure they don't think about the consequences of it. They don't think that the fight they had in the middle school locker room might affect a college application or job interview.
So, the blessing and the curse. And I have to say this - I am SO glad I am the age I am. I did all my stupid stuff before the Internet and my mother could never track me with GPS.