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?

I feel like it’s only controlling and creepy if the people you share your location with are controlling and creepy. DH and I have it, eventually our DC will too and it has caused no issues but solved a lot of problems. If your partner is checking where you are, questioning you etc obviously the partner is the problem not the app.

Lost my phone? DH will find it with his. Driving home and can’t text ETA? I can check the map. Separated in a foreign country? Just keep heading towards each other until you meet in the middle. DH has even used it to surprise me when I was in a different city and missed him!

I have it with everyone & love it. We’re all nosey buggers in my family though. we all FaceTime each other a lot so it’s easy to just quickly check if they’re available before calling.
I have it with DP because I like to know when he’s coming home as I’m home with the baby & it makes me happy when I check and see he’s left work already 🤣
I just recently got it in with my brother while we were in Center parcs so we could meet up without having to text and ask if we were busy.

only time I’ve turned it off is if I’m going somewhere specific to buy a present for someone or when we had our first private scan before anyone knew we were having the baby.

I don’t really think it’s that deep at all if you don’t want to do it then fine but everyone else can do what they like 😊

I am in total agreement with you OP. I think it’s totally unnecessary. Or, rather, I wouldn’t be comfortable with it and the majority of people I am friends with feel the same. I only have one close friend who shares her location with her entire family and vice versa.

Me and my DH share our locations as we are lazy and we worked in the phone industry for many years and we are really not that attached to our phones, but it saves the unessasary messages or calls to ask if you are on your way home/ how long are you going to be, it's also great as my DH does lots of running and cycling and it's a piece of mind knowing roughly where he is just incase of an accident.
We both have our youngest son on it he is 17 and autistic and he uses it mainly to see where we are.
I also have our other son on it he is in the army and I have told him he doesn't need to keep his location on but he says he likes it as he can see where I am and it cures him when he is feeling homesick.
I also have my mum and dad at their request but I never look to see where they are a their life does not interest me but yet again it's just so I know they are safe but they are huge texters.

It's also something that's easy to turn off and on so if you don't want to be traced then it's an easy fix.

I don't feel strongly about it but do have location sharing with my husband and adult kids and also my siblings and older parents (after one had a fall down a country lane!).

It was actually my adult children that installed it on my phone. They are more interested in what I'm doing than the other way around.

I rarely check it except to make sure I don't start dinner too early if DH is away from home!

Me and my partner share our location because it helps us be a bit more organised. I can see when to stick dinner on based on where he is on the motorway! We both travel a lot for work so works for us to coordinate logistics.

I was thinking about this recently with the poor bloke who died in the toilet in Edinburgh and wasn’t found for almost a week. His partner reported him missing after he called her to say he was unwell but the police said he was an adult so not a missing person. If she could have seen his location then he could have been found earlier.

My DH and me share our location, it’s useful I can see if he’s left work and when to put the oven on. Once when I lost my phone he could tell it was in the library.

I have access to other family members too, we don’t live close and don’t spend every day checking but it’s useful if we are meeting up and can see if they have left their house. Or if you just want to ring you can see if they are home or out.

No snooping no asking questions as such and we all find it useful. Odd occasions I’ve just turned my location off if I was going to the hospital for a private appointment then switched it back in afterwards

😂😂 I love that, made me laugh. Someone should start a thread on

‘Things I can call “ridiculous” which other people do but I don’t’ Eg. . Using air fresheners is one of them. Vaping is another. Taking dogs to shops is the third. I could continue endlessly.

😂

It's for the most mundane things as well. 'So I can see if he's on his way home'. As if just asking him is so difficult 😆

It's the same as how children can't not have a phone for travelling to and from school. I understand its useful but in reality if someone was kidnapping or assaulting them the phone would be no use whatsoever.

If I lived in the area, that's what I'd do. Tebay Services is famous!

It's a bit easier for me to see DH if he's on his way home in the car than it is for me to text him or call him. I don't really like distracting him while he's driving. Plus it gets on his nerves when I ask him how long he will be hence why we put it on in the first place! Do you think calling or texting and him trying to give me his location is easier than me just looking?

It was v handy recently in a big shopping centre we had never been to before (which had very few (we couldn't find one at all) maps dotted round) and he said he was in the Nike store. I was like which floor, where, how far along, and he said just use my find my. Piss easy. Are you saying that it would be easier without the find my app?

And recently he couldn't find his phone while we were out, thinking he had left it in a shop. I used find my and we saw he had left it at home, no worries. Do you think it would have been easier to find without the app?

Don't get the big issue with it at all. I would say it makes life easier.

Several people have said 'tracked' and 'tracking' all the time. Now, if you are sitting there watching your partners every move, that is an issue. if you use it occasionally as above, don't see the issue AT ALL

Although I do share my location with dh when I go running in remote places so that he knows where to start looking if I don't come back.

Well it would be useful if someone kidnapped them and they had their find my location on......................

I'd rather be able to see the location than interrupt someone driving. Even hands free calls are a disturbance.
There are still large areas where phone signal and wifi aren't great either. we're in S London, but the are are sections of both DS and DH commute where they aren't contactable, but their location still shows. Ans if they are trying to deal with train cancellations etc it's easier for me to keep an eye on them to see when they might be home rather than constantly texting me updates.

Guys pretending calling someone in the car is a huge deal is just nonsense.

I assume you’re joking 😂

Who said it was a huge deal?

Being able to see his progress gave me peace of mind

Another reason I don't like the thought of them - I suffer from anxiety and I see this tracking stuff as another way to "feed" it.
Checking up on my now older kids to reassure myself.
Far rather keep my mind busy doing things, going places then getting wound up tracking people.

I was in a horribly controlling relationship 10 years ago and this would have absolutely been used to track and question every move.

I don't have my kids tracked, though I think they track their friends on Snapchat. I've used Whatsapp location sharing when we're trying to meet somewhere specific (Disneyland last year was crazy, they went off and we met them and hour later for example). I have no need to track anyone - my dc are young adults and it's a courtesy to tell me where they are and when they're going to be home for tea/after a night out - I neither need nor want to track their movements.

As I say, I worry about the sinister side to having movements tracked. It doesn't work for me but it's up to individuals.

But texting to ask and then waiting for a reply while he texts back is a bit of a faff, and far more time consuming than glancing at an app.

Feel free to do it whatever way you like, but I am also free to use technology responsibly in whatever way I want in order to make my life easier.

It's a useful tool for responsible people. It's only a problem if you or someone your location is shared with is abusive and misuses it in some way. Since no-one within my group is abusive, it's a great tool for me. I most certainly wouldn't share my location with anyone I considered likely to abuse it. Luckily that's not the case in my circle.

I do understand why those whose partners would check up on them or stalk them or judge them for eating a McDonalds or whatever wouldn't want it. But that is a problem with their relationship, not with the app.

I don't think they want to be tracked, they just want to be able to do their nosey. The really daft justifications make it worse.

I have occasionally shared location on WhatsApp. But do not have an app or share my location with anyone. I am inclined to agree with you OP.

I did notice that that mother who was killed on the street in Bradford by her abusive ex husband, was tracked because he could still see her location as she hadn’t turned it off.

There are pros and cons to the technology for certain.

It’s not a big deal, but it is a distraction, as per Rule 149 of the Highway Code.

We have it activated for practical reasons, so that if one of us is stuck in traffic and I want to gauge when to start preparing dinner for example etc. I have used ti locate my children’s phone in the house using the ping feature. Without it, there’s no way we could find their devices. You can also use to deactivate your partner’s phone if it’s lost and you were worried that your data might be stolen.