This is such a good article though
The argument Pinto makes is that the story and the doll normalize 24-hour surveillance in the mind of a child, which makes them susceptible to more passively accept police-state surveillance as adults.
âI donât think the elf is a conspiracy and I realize weâre talking about a toy,â Pinto told The Post. âIt sounds humorous, but we argue that if a kid is okay with this bureaucratic elf spying on them in their home, it normalizes the idea of surveillance and in the future restrictions on our privacy might be more easily accepted.â
Itâs based in a theory that was developed by Jeremy Bentham and popularized by Michel Foucault in which students, prisoners, factory workers and others were thought to function better (for whatever value of better) in a system called a panopticon, in which an individual is potentially under surveillance 24-hours a day, but never actually KNOWS whether or not he or she is being surveilled.Â
Pinto said sheâs not the first person to be troubled by Elf on the Shelfâs surveilling. Sheâs said parents routinely contact her to say they changed the rules of the game after it made their families uneasy. And many kids, she said, often intuitively feel like spying and being a tattletale is wrong.
âA mom e-mailed me and told me that the first day they read the elf book and put the elf out, her daughter woke up crying because she was being watched by the elf,â Pinto recounted. âThey changed the game so it wouldnât scare the child.â
In addition to the problem of normalizing surveillance in the mind of a child, this also forces the child into a situation where they never feel like they are free to simply be themselves; they are forced to be âon their best behaviorâ at all times, unable to relax and make mistakes and do the job of growing up and being a child, because they never know if the elf is spying on them, ready and waiting to report back to Santa Claus that theyâve been bad.
Here is a link to the paper that the article is talking about
My co-worker got Elf on the Shelf for her four-year-old daughter last year, and was so freaked out by her daughterâs sudden and complete change in behaviour (uncharacteristically worried and anxious, while trying to be on her âbestâ behaviour that she never kept up for family or at school) that she stuffed Elf in the garbage after a week, telling the daughter that the Elf had to go back to the North Pole to help Santa with Christmas.Â
Also read the paper linked above, itâs a good one.
I hate this entire concept so much.
