Do you think you would like it if someone went through all your personal information and conversations with your friends? That is what a lot of parents are doing lately with their kids’ phones. I think they should not do that because it is an invasion of privacy and unfair.

My parents go through my phone. The reason behind it? It is “their phone” because they bought it for me. My mom says if I have nothing to hide, I shouldn’t care if she goes through my phone. But that’s not the point, because I don’t have anything to hide. The point is that I don’t want anyone to just scroll through and read all my texts with my friends because I wouldn’t say it out loud to my parents, so they shouldn’t be able to read it. It’s not that I say anything bad, it’s just that those are my private conversations. I know my parents wouldn’t like it if I saw their texts and photos they’ve shared with their friends or with each other. The Royal Banner said, “Overall, parents should be able to trust their kid enough to not look through their phones.”

My parents say it is because they need to know I am trustworthy. I think I have already proved that so I really don’t understand the point of it. A lot of parents think they should be able to go through their kids’ phones. They automatically assume we are doing something bad or inappropriate on our phones, even though, in almost all cases, we are not. I only know about one of my friends who doesn’t care when her parents go through her phone. She says she doesn’t have anything to hide so she doesn’t care and she doesn’t even mind that they go through her texts. I have nothing to hide either, but I still wouldn’t want my parents to see what my friends and I talk about because that is ours to talk about, not my parents’. I have to make sure not to text my friend anything I wouldn’t want her parents to see.

I have it better than a lot of kids because my parents very rarely go through my phone, so I consider myself lucky. I am trying to continue being very responsible and so whenever they decide to go through my phone, they won’t find anything and they’ll do it less and less because they know they can trust me about that. I still don’t think they should be able to go through my personal information, but I am grateful that they don’t do it often.