Ask HN: Can technology make us feel safer?

Over the past few decades, there has been a measurable increase in our fear of personal safety.

In 1975, Roger Hart, an environmental psychologist, studied the children of a town in Vermont. Forty years later, he returned to what had changed. Children who used to have free range of the town now felt uncomfortable leaving their own properties. The parents of these children wanted to know that their kids were safely within reach at all times, even those parents who once had the run of the town. [The podcast Invisibilia interviews Hart here.](http://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/377515477/fearless?showDate=2015-01-16)

TV shows like To Catch a Predator have impregnated the idea that danger lurks around every corner. Bullies use the internet to attack kids even when they're at home.

Technology improves lives in countless ways. Can it be used to make people feel safer, particularly when it comes to their children?

Do devices like GPS Children Trackers, or internet monitoring actually make us feel safer, or do they just reinforce the worry that the world is a dangerous place?