Is it ok for parents to monitor their kids online? It's tricky balancing privacy and safety in a digital world.

• Author: Landers, Betsy
• Position: DEBATE

YES

Technology can open up new worlds to young people and provide them with rich learning experiences, but it can also expose them to significant risks. It's the responsibility of parents to protect their children, and these days that means keeping close tabs on what they do online.

Young people have grown up with cutting-edge technology and constant connectivity, so it seems normal to them to share intimate details of their lives online. And that's exactly why parents need to be involved.

In addition to talking with their kids about their online friends and activities, parents should feel comfortable utilizing electronic monitoring tools to keep their children safe online. This is not an invasion of privacy; it's simply a 21st-century responsibility.

Plenty of strangers already track where young people go online: Google tracks their searches, and advertisers keep tabs on where they browse. It's absurd to suggest that parents--whose only intention is to keep their children safe--shouldn't be allowed to monitor their kids' activities online.

You can't compare reading a child's journal to accessing his or her conversations online. The Internet is a completely different animal and should not be treated the same as a diary or private letters. No harm can come from something a teen writes and keeps privately in a diary, no matter how shocking. The same cannot be said for thoughts shared on blogs or social media sites.

Parents who are monitoring their children's activities via technology are not crossing the line into invasion of privacy; they are cyber-savvy and protecting their kids.

--BETSY LANDERS

President, National PTA

NO

It's understandable that parents worry about their kids. But the most destructive thing parents can do is violate the bond of trust they share with a child.

Teenagers want to feel...