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?

Of course there have always been abusive controllers. This is a powerful additional tool.

Of course these apps are fine and useful for people in normal relationships. It’s also fine if you live your life without them and don’t feel the need. There’s no need for normal people to get defensive about either using or not using them.

But the OP’s disquiet at the normalisation - that’s reasonable if you’re thinking beyond your own use.

I did the same and my mum got so worried everytime the bus or train was delayed. She definitely would have got a tracker for me if available then!

i don't and i wouldn't if a partner or family member insisted for controlling reasons

But if i go to meet someone in a place i don't know and it's late and dark? totally would be sharing my location with my DH

Never done it. DD is in her late teens, she's always out doing something, I've never tracked her. I send her a text asking: Are you home for dinner? And I normally get a response.

It's not about whether you have anything to hide or not. It's just very intrusive and in most cases completely unnecessary.
I have nothing to hide but I don't want someone tracking me thanks.

Do you ever nosy to see how many nights a week she is out clubbing? My mum would!

i am a parent of a teenager in London and I find it useful and reassuring to know where she is. I have the locations of all my DC including the grown up ones. They can switch it off if they want to. DH travels an awful lot and it’s nice to see where he is.

Though if my 70 year old MIL knew she could track our movements, she totally would. I can totally imagine getting a random, “That cafe has great brownies” or “I saw the most beautiful rhododendron in the hedge to the right just beyond the bend with the crooked tree.” 😳

On my way home from a work trip, I stopped at Tebay Services and got a text from my husband “get pies!” 😆

I have no idea how to do this. Am the only one? I think it might be handy when we are on holiday and DH goes cycling in an unknown place.

We use it. It’s useful and reassuring. No one is ‘checking up’ on anyone. When the kids were at uni, I’d never look at it.

Posting on MN is unnecessary (and some might say weird) and yet here you are. Do you only do necessary things in life?

can any android users suggest a good app for this?
one DC is going travelling alone across several countries and has suggested we do this. But i have no idea what is a good app or not

My mum shares with my brother nearby when she goes for her wanders around quite large forests. That's it.
Having it on all the time is just so intrusive for us.

When I was a teen, I would absolutely have hated this degree of potential surveillance. Until the advent of smartphones, it had never occurred to me how liberating it felt to be out and about on my own or with mates. I don't think it can be good for developing independence and resilience.

A family member has location sharing with her DD and vice versa. When DD was out somewhere in her car, her mother saw that her car hadn't moved in 10 minutes or so and couldn't get through on the phone. She got herself into a massive stress, thinking that she must have been in a terrible accident. Her DD had pulled over and was on her phone, chatting to a mate.

They check up on each other all the time and her DD is always on the phone to her, wanting to know what she should do about this or that. She's 22, and left home a year ago!

I very much doubt an 11-year-old today is at any more risk of anything bad happening to them while travelling alone than one would have been a few decades ago, and the most significant risks are not ones that can be mitigated by location sharing.

Its a great safety feature if you’ve got teenagers who rarely let you know where they are 😄

Yep this. The world is not more dangerous now than it was 20 years ago.

No. It's none of my business, she's an adult!

That's my whole point. It's only a problem if the people using them are a problem.

In normal healthy families, it's nothing more than a useful tool.

Stalkers are gonna stalk, controllers are gonna control, app or not.

If you feel that the people around you couldn't be trusted to see your whereabouts - by all means decline to use the app. But understand that the problem is with the people and your relationships, not the app.

My friend was kidnapped by her abusive ex. They were found because he didn’t take her phone off her 🤷🏼‍♀️

I use life360 with my kids. They're 14-18 now and don't go out much anyway, but I use it if my youngest pops to the shop down the road, he's got ADHD so I like to know he's alright and made it there.

Same for my other two, my eldest is autistic and my middle girl probably has undiagnosed neurodivergence but I just like to check they're getting to the places they're going. I never check while they're with their friends or anything like that, it's literally just to check they got to where they were going safely.

It's helped me on occasion, when my eldest stopped moving on his bike for a while. I kept an eye on my phone around that time and he ended up messaging saying he had fallen and hurt himself. Not badly, but enough to need picking up and his bike bringing back. If I hadn't checked life360 at that time, I might've missed the messages as I keep my phone on silent (am also neurodivergent 😆)

It's not stalkery at all - it allows you to check your children are safe... Since when did caring about the children's welfare mean you were stalkery and controlling?

I wouldn't use it with a husband or partner though. I do find that a bit much, unless maybe when one of you are out at a club or something. Might come in useful then, just in case the worst happens.

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

Unless one of you happens to check the other’s location while you are there, how would the other know? Why would they care if you did anyway?

You don't need an app. The phone does it anyway. You can pretend you've turned it off if you like, but it's always there. Even if not from GPS then simply what cell towers are nearby.

We don't but I could understand how it might be handy or used to be safe at times as long as it's not used as a tool to control or snoop. I don't think it's particularly weird, but our lives aren't that exciting!

well no, but if something happens, we have something that can greatly help find someone.

The solo-mountain-biking DHs for example. Or the Teens finding their wings for the first time.

The pp mentioning her friend obsessively stalking her DH (x shop, y pub, macdonalds) - that friend is batshit. As are all the people who use it for controling or jealous reasons.

but as an additional safety feature? why not?

I share my location with my husband and son; and that’s plenty.

I don’t want notifications every time my brother, mum, and dad leave the house to go to work.
And again when they leave!

Update ‘Your Circle’, is my advice.