Location sharing- I think I’m worryingly in the minority

[PomPomHead]

I am seriously worried that I’m in the minority here and the world’s gone mad. Why would you share your location All The Time with every member of your family ( even, as in the case of my friends, with your
married 30 year old daughter!)? Why does nobody feel able to be independent and unwatched ? It baffles me and nobody has been able to persuade me of the so-called safety benefits?
Is checking your location now the new showing me you love me?

Yep I agree, totally unnecessary. A friends fella does this cause he cares apparently. In the same breath she says he's controlling. We don't live somewhere super dangerous!

It’s a choice. I don’t do it but I totally understand why someone would, especially if they have experienced someone go missing or having an accident and being unreachable.

I have it with DH, my sister and DM. Works for us. Nothing to hide.

If you don’t want it, don’t use it; but what has other people using it possibly got to do with you?!

Why does it bother you so much what other people do?

We all have it on, we don’t daily sit and check each others moves. It’s just there in case it’s ever needed. No big deal. When the kids are adults they are free to turn it off, leave the group. So far adult DS (still lives at home) hasn’t.

It's ridiculous. I have never done it for any of my 4 DC or DH never entered my mind.

All my kids are on it because when they lived at home they went out alone on mountain bikes. It was a prerequisite that they had location sharing on in case of accidents. Now two of them have left home they still have it on, despite me gently pointing out that they dont have to! I have no interest in my extended family doing it, although my teens know where all their mates are through snapmaps.

I wonder why you find it 'worrying' that you don't have it? Or 'worrying' that other families do?

No. I live alone and I don’t share my location with anyone. I find it completely unnecessary

I’m not even sure I’m my DH knows how to use it, but should anything happen it’s there and the police / etc would be able to access it via his phone. The kids also know how to access it.

I don't have any app that could do that and I've never felt the need to get one track my now teenager. Friends seem to stalk their kids all the time, weird dynamic but their choice.

Adults in our family share locations, ever since it became a feature, so quite a few years now. I only check it very occasionally if I need to know if someone is home or nearby. Nothing to hide.

I find it totally odd and unnecessary in most cases. But each to their own

I think it's weird. Just like having cameras in your home which seems to be increasing in popularity too.

Me and my partner have it. I don’t feel the need to share further. DP has it for his children. At some point when one of them reached a certain age they turned it off their phone and that was fine too.

DH and I share location for practical reasons and it works for us in our specific circumstances. Saves a lot of phone calls and helps with logistics.

I have to admit I find it quite funny when people arrogantly proclaim it's "ridiculous" as per at least one PP on here. What a strange thing to form an opinion on. Surely if it isn't useful for your family you just don't do it 🤷

Absolutely not. It’s nobody’s business where I am as I am an adult. DP and I don’t follow each other. The rule in our house is that you have your life 360 on until you leave uni. However one of mine is currently travelling and I asked them to have it on so if anything happens I know where they last were. They will switch it off when they get home

I feel it's unnecessary except when someone is out hiking/cycling/climbing.

I just assume it's an anxiety soothing behaviour.

Ooh. I definitely wouldn't insist my uni aged children have it on. Or the travelling ones. Up to them if they want to.

It's useful if you are arranging to meet someone so you can see how far away they are.

It is ridiculous that everyone feels the need to track their kids these days for “safety”. At the risk of sounding ancient, when I went to secondary school some of my friends - who were only just 11 - got to school by themselves by a 30 minute train journey then 15 minute walk! With no mobile phone, no tracking, no way of contacting parents.

We do it - it’s easier to click into the “find my” app and see how far away DH is, rather than texting to ask when he’ll be home. Especially if he’s driving so can’t answer. Or I use it to find him in theme parks/shopping centres etc.

I never look at it in circumstances where I wouldn’t have previously called or texted to ask where he was, it’s not like I’m spending my days monitoring his movements.

I thought it unnecessary. My DCs got to the ages of 20 and 23 quite happily. Away at uni, no problems.
Then DS came back home after uni, went out one night and got his drink spiked. We didn't know at the time - got a very incoherent call at 4am in mid November telling us he was nearly home and then nothing. He wouldn't/ couldn't answer his phone when we rang back. He didn't turn up at home.
If his sister hadn't been home from uni and managed to find him because at some random point in the past she remembered using find my friend at a concert with him, he would have been a couple of hours lying unconscious in the snow in a front garden about 100m away. I dread to think what might have happened. DH and I had been out looking for him and both walked passed him without seeing him in the dark. Because if the shared location we knew where to look.

So now we all have Life 360. It's rarely used, but it's reassuring if someone is on a long drive, and sometimes helpful to know when to put the dinner on!

With you, I think it's weird and also contributes massively IMO to the rise in anxiety, lack of resilience and infantilising behaviours we're seeing in society, plus normalising controlling behaviours (just when we're trying to teach people to recognise them more) and lack of trust.

It's also a false reassurance. It tells you where someone's phone is, not where they are - and in the event that something bad has happened, it's quite likely (more likely than in the normal course of events) that they won't in fact have their phone with them for some reason.
Or that they may leave it somewhere "approved" whilst going somewhere not approved, or just turn off tracking if doing something disapproved of.

Police could, if needed, triangulate (phone) locations from which signal towers are being used, so it's not even giving you much that isn't already available from other methods in case of emergency.

For the remote cycling/hiking/sailing etc, there are emergency location beacons/services designed for just that purpose, and which are better suited to a remote environment with variable mobile coverage, cos they don't work on the same tech system.

I don't location share with anyone ever. It's controlling and creepy imo

Risks change significantly over time, don't they? I'm not saying that tracking location is necessarily an effective safeguarding measure - we'd need some data to know whether that's true - but I doubt that "people did XYZ when I was a kid" means anything today, really. The world is a totally different place and the risks we face are different. That's why safeguarding practice changes and evolves constantly.

I do it. I don’t have a nosey family, am very independent and don’t think it’s a safety thing. It’s just easier for multiple different scenarios. Eg. when we’re visiting or when they are visiting us to see when they might get there etc. or when holidaying together and travelling in convey. Totally get that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but also don’t really understand the strength of feeling that OTHER people doing it seems to trigger in some.

I think location sharing is nuts!

DH and I both agree that, if one of us wants a sneaky McDonald's drive through - or whatever, then that's none of the other's bloody business!

If I was on a solo hiking holiday in the wilderness, that's the only time I'd ever allow it.