Tag Archives: internet

Let children play, and get injured

Many reported the paper on smart phones and child injuries by Craig Palsson the previous days. The finding is that the construction of 3G networks in US cities may have lead to increased use of smartphones, less supervision of children, and more children going to hostpital with injuries. I believe most parents are too restrictive, so I was happy to see the following sentence regarding the welfare effects:

“Even though child injuries should not be taken lightly, some might argue that parents were oversupplying supervision or that injuries help build character, and therefore the smartphone-induced injures are welfare enhancing.”

Though I would rather call it a sign that the children are more physically active, which is good for both body and brain, as shown by a recent RCT. And as I have written about before, children tend to be very active during self-organized play.

The benefits of a surveillance state

Surveillance gets a bad rap these days, but here is another perspective, stated clearly for once: Stuart Armstrong writing in the Aeon magazine spells out what the benefits of total surveillance might be. Summary: less crime, fewer resources spent on police and military, prevent pandemics and terrorists, help disaster response, provide data for research, practical applications, more global trust. (And he duly notes: “these potential benefits aren’t the whole story on mass surveillance.”)

Cybersecurity

Confused about debates about cybersecurity? A series of posts by Henry Farrell at the Monkey Cage blog seems a good place to start. First out, the importance of recognising that the two main sides have different points of view on what “security” means:

[C]ybersecurity is riven by disagreements over what security is in the first place. Is it a technical problem (which could be solved by computer system administrators, working alone or quietly coordinating with each other)? Or is it a national security problem (which requires a large scale collective effort, organized by the U.S. government, to defend against existential threats to the homeland)?