Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday August 28 2017, @07:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the get-their-attention dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Kids have always been a little difficult.

Technology may have made things worse, as the young tend to know more about tech than their parents do.

They know, for example, how to ignore mom and dad and do whatever they like.

Nick Herbert found this a touch frustrating.

Kids have a habit of simply not replying to texts. Not because they're bad kids, but, well, they're doing something more interesting on the phone -- like playing a game.

So, as CBS News reports, Herbert conceived ReplyASAP. This is an app (currently available only on Android) that forces your child to address your texts.

By annoying the living hell out of them.

[...] Herbert insists that ReplyASAP is meant to be used only in emergencies. This isn't about annoying your kids all the time, however tempting that might be.

Indeed, he told me that it's not about forcing your child to reply. Instead, he said: "It is simply a means of getting an important message to the child, even when they have their phone on silent, and for the parent to know they have seen it."

[Ed Note - Updated Google Play link to correct a typo]

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by bart9h on Monday August 28 2017, @09:57PM (1 child)

    by bart9h (767) on Monday August 28 2017, @09:57PM (#560546)

    VOIP?

    Hangouts, Whatsapp, Telegram, they all have an option to make a voice call.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:12AM

    by vux984 (5045) on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:12AM (#560667)

    VOIP and equivalents don't accomplish anything if the phone is on silent and the 'call' goes unanswered/unacknowledged.
    They also require data, which with the kids is hit and miss as they don't have a data plan... my kids and most of their friends just wifi hop because its cheaper.

    I'd rather a solution that queued the message for them, delivered it when it could, and made sure they saw it. (My daughter might have 1000 IM from 20+ people over 5 different apps after turning her phone to silent for a few hours...(Much of that 1000 is going to be new messages from group chats e.g. on skype... where hundreds of the messages are just her friends chatting with eachother... )

    The point is that the fact that she got a message from Mom and Dad might easily go unnoticed under an avalance of notifications like that until she goes through it*; where I want her to see we sent her a must-read-asap message even if she just checks the time.

    * And I say that from personal experience; I've missed messages from my family for hours if I had tons of email, call, and other IM notifications piled up after a meeting. I'll glance at the phone, or check my schedule... see that stuff has piled up; and don't dig into it until later. But I would have wanted to see certain urgent messages from my wife right away up front.