Page 18 | Phone tracking while at university

Fenimore · 2025-10-09T04:04:32+00:00

Astonished that so many parents I know are tracking their kids by phone. These are 18/19 year olds. I guess the young people don’t mind or they’d turn off the tracking. I just don’t think it’s healthy. One parent I know is checking every day to see if their son is at lectures as well as what time he’s home from a night out. i don’t track DD. One, she really wouldn’t like it and two, I think it would be stressful as well as being an invasion of privacy. Does anyone do this?

BendoftheBeginning · 09/10/2025 16:14

My kids are tracking ME. So yikes. ZOMG.

TheignT · 09/10/2025 16:16

aperolspritzbasicbitch · 09/10/2025 11:47

Do people walk in wooded areas in the middle of the night?

I would imagine the first port of call would be to call the person, see if they can get hold of them.

I’m not sure - although I share location with people that’s not a situation I’ve been in.

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Depends where you live or where your uni is. Uni in my home city did have wooded area round it, sort of parkland with woods. In my experience kids away at uni aren't tucked up in bed every night at 10, plenty of out and about at 4 or 5 in the morning.

The main point is it doesn't protect them, it might make you feel better and that might be justified or not but no one has explained how it keeps them safe and I don't think it does. It doesn't even reliably tell you where they are, it tells you where their phone is. For one of mine if I'd tracked their phone I'd probably have been a bit mystified as it was down the back of a seat in a taxi and spent the night travelling round until it was found when they cleaned the taxi the next morning.

Etoile41 · 09/10/2025 16:18

We have a family circle on Life360.
My DD had a circle with her friends and I asked her to do the same with us so we could have peace of mind, especially when she went to university, as she was moving abroad. She had no issue with doing so. It is

I do admit to checking it very frequently at first, but now only check it very occasionally eg to know when is a good time to call, if travelling to check she has arrived safely, if she hasn't responded to msgs in a few days, etc It is not about control. I never ever comment about where she goes or if she's been out late, she is an adult and can do as she pleases, but knowing I can find her if I need to, gives me peace of mind.

Today is the perfect example. I checked my DSs (10) location as I had to meet up with him and I saw that my daughter had been in hospital since last night! I called her and thankfully she is ok but still waiting to be admitted.

Tracking really does serve a purpose and I'm glad that my children are happy to use it.

Zimunya · 09/10/2025 16:21

Etoile41 · 09/10/2025 16:18

We have a family circle on Life360.
My DD had a circle with her friends and I asked her to do the same with us so we could have peace of mind, especially when she went to university, as she was moving abroad. She had no issue with doing so. It is

I do admit to checking it very frequently at first, but now only check it very occasionally eg to know when is a good time to call, if travelling to check she has arrived safely, if she hasn't responded to msgs in a few days, etc It is not about control. I never ever comment about where she goes or if she's been out late, she is an adult and can do as she pleases, but knowing I can find her if I need to, gives me peace of mind.

Today is the perfect example. I checked my DSs (10) location as I had to meet up with him and I saw that my daughter had been in hospital since last night! I called her and thankfully she is ok but still waiting to be admitted.

Tracking really does serve a purpose and I'm glad that my children are happy to use it.

Don't mention "checking it's a good time to call" - you'll get MI5 style questioning from @Digdongdoo!

MsPavlichenko · 09/10/2025 16:26

Cnnb · 09/10/2025 13:52

My DD21 lives at home and commutes to her master's program. Am I not supposed ask her where she'll be going and how she'll be getting back after dark? Especially if she wants come rolling back after midnight?

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I was talking about tracking children when they leave home. Clearly adults living together can share info re their plans where appropriate. But my DD came back for her finals year, then Covid kept her a couple more. She was frequently out till after midnight, and no I rarely, if ever asked about how she planned to get home, or what time.

DancingNotDrowning · 09/10/2025 16:28

DiscouragingDiagnosis · 09/10/2025 12:14

Because growing a generation of anxious children (or instilling in them that it is normal to be a hyper-anxious adult) damages everyone. I'm an HCP that sees many many young adults in clinic with their parents, unable to advocate for themselves, to speak out, let alone face an independent future. Hovering parents who truly believe they are doing the right thing, with their care, love and protection, but ultimately undermining maturation.

It is also normalising what I (and clearly many others) feels is unpleasant societal creep towards surveillance at all levels. So yes, I think it is everyone's problem. I rarely argue with strangers on the internet as it is futile, but I feel passionately that we are sleepwalking into a wrong.

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But you’re conflating two completely different issues there.

My DD has been managing her healthcare independently (GP, gynaecologist, orthodontist) since she was 14.

we don’t track because we’re anxious, in fact I suspect the reason my adult DC are happy with it is because we’re so relaxed.

The ship on surveillance has sailed. You can pretend you’re opting out but government and corporate surveillance is pretty much all encompassing. Avoiding social surveillance by avoiding having your family know your location is sticking a plaster in a gunshot wound.

Digdongdoo · 09/10/2025 16:33

Zimunya · 09/10/2025 16:21

Don't mention "checking it's a good time to call" - you'll get MI5 style questioning from @Digdongdoo!

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I'd like to think MI5 are a bit cleverer than "why do you prefer it". Sorry you're so sensitive about your choices.

Iloveeverycat · 09/10/2025 16:34

I have never tracked any of mine I have never felt the need to. Doing it at uni just seems weird.

Zimunya · 09/10/2025 16:39

Digdongdoo · 09/10/2025 16:33

I'd like to think MI5 are a bit cleverer than "why do you prefer it". Sorry you're so sensitive about your choices.

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Ah. I see humour is lost on some posters.

LillyPJ · 09/10/2025 16:40

CatchingtheCat · 09/10/2025 09:45

There were 70,000 rapes reported last year. 700 people died falling down stairs. So you are a hundred times more likely to be raped.

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Source? Reported rapes aren't necessarily rapes either. And raw numbers don't help much in assessing probability.

DancingNotDrowning · 09/10/2025 16:42

Digdongdoo · 09/10/2025 16:33

I'd like to think MI5 are a bit cleverer than "why do you prefer it". Sorry you're so sensitive about your choices.

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It is definitely not the people who track that are sensitive about their choices…

Zimunya · 09/10/2025 16:49

DancingNotDrowning · 09/10/2025 16:42

It is definitely not the people who track that are sensitive about their choices…

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Agreed 😀

Fedupsky · 09/10/2025 17:21

Nestingbirds · 09/10/2025 11:09

They had only arrived a week or so before, no one really knew each other. My dd didn’t know her, even though they shared the same floor, and she wouldn’t have noticed if someone was missing as there are so many students.

Not all parents speak to their dc every day, so how would anyone have noticed?

If I had seen my dd was in her room, and hadn’t left at all, yes I would be contacting her directly and urgently. Especially in freshers week. Had her parents known she was ill, they may have stepped up their contact with her, and checked in more often and known she was becoming seriously ill - it’s not their fault and they had no way of knowing she was so unwell.

It was horrendous for the students obviously. I think brand new students are in a very vulnerable position, no one knows to check on them. Even students that have been around for a long time may not have made any friends/have no one to do this.

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I agree that freshers week and the settling in period that follows is a particularly vulnerable time. The poor girl who died of meningitis. Isn’t this one the vaccinations children have as babies? I don’t know the stats on how effective it is for protection from the virus. Another pp said they knew of 2 other students who died of it within an 8 hr window, just horrific 😢 In such a short time frame this would be so easily missed but the girl who was ill for 3 days you would hope in most cases someone would check up on them.

There were some near misses that happened at my uni during the freshers period, safety issues particularly for the girls. Like there were adult men (non-students) coming onto campus and hanging around chatting people up, one group was successful in forcing their way into a girls halls in the middle of the night. Some girls got their drinks spiked etc like it was a kind of beacon to predatory men that there was a new cohort of vulnerable young women on campus to try it on with /assault.

New students have so much freedom but not necessarily the life experience to match this new found freedom.

HonoriaBulstrode · 09/10/2025 17:32

If any had a problem or concern with it, we could absolutely have a proper conversation about it, and then decide together how to move forwards.

So they couldn't just make a unilateral decision to turn it off? It would require a conversation and deciding together?

PixieandMe · 09/10/2025 17:55

Starlight1984 · 09/10/2025 11:30

Exactly! All of these justifications for tracking are hilarious (but actually a bit creepy).

"Oh I find it really helpful to know my daughter is home before I ring her".

How do you know she's not 2 hours into a marathon shagfest with her boyfriend?! How do you know she isn't revising or trying to concentrate on something important? How do you know she isn't having a heart to heart with her housemate who has been dumped?

Just because someone is in a certain location it means nothing!! Just fucking ring her and if she's free, she'll answer!

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No-one is required to justify themselves to you or anyone else provided they have consent from the person to share location.

Mind your own business and worry about your own family.

Cnnb · 09/10/2025 18:08

When DD is coming back home late at night I always sit and wait because I'm worried..I go pick her up as well because I don't want her walking back alone from the station.

whiteroseredrose · 09/10/2025 18:33

I have Find My on Apple phones for my DC aged 22 and 25 who are doing PhDs. It actually started the other way around a few years ago as they wanted to know how near I was to home! They set it up and still track DH and I when we’re on our way to visit them.

EdithBond · 09/10/2025 18:46

TheignT · 09/10/2025 16:16

Depends where you live or where your uni is. Uni in my home city did have wooded area round it, sort of parkland with woods. In my experience kids away at uni aren't tucked up in bed every night at 10, plenty of out and about at 4 or 5 in the morning.

The main point is it doesn't protect them, it might make you feel better and that might be justified or not but no one has explained how it keeps them safe and I don't think it does. It doesn't even reliably tell you where they are, it tells you where their phone is. For one of mine if I'd tracked their phone I'd probably have been a bit mystified as it was down the back of a seat in a taxi and spent the night travelling round until it was found when they cleaned the taxi the next morning.

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100% it tracks the phone but not person. Some people have questioned this in Jay Slater’s case. His phone was in a certain location, but was he?

Some parents can also be quite naive to ways around things.

If you don’t want anyone to track you, you just get a second phone and leave the tracked one at home, so it looks like you’re tucked up in bed.

While you take the untracked phone for a night on the town.

Arlanymor · 09/10/2025 18:52

EdithBond · 09/10/2025 18:46

100% it tracks the phone but not person. Some people have questioned this in Jay Slater’s case. His phone was in a certain location, but was he?

Some parents can also be quite naive to ways around things.

If you don’t want anyone to track you, you just get a second phone and leave the tracked one at home, so it looks like you’re tucked up in bed.

While you take the untracked phone for a night on the town.

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Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'phone sex' - nice that you'd take it out on the tiles first for some food, drinks and dancing. Very respectful.

Addictforanex · 09/10/2025 19:29

Why do some people prefer to check the person they want to call is somewhere they can take a call before calling? I imagine because it is quicker and less friction, particularly with the invention of mobile phones. Many may be too young to remember Dom Jolly.

open phone, check location, call, talk (probably), done

vs what could be,

call, no answer, leave voicemail, person listens to voicemail, call gets returned when convenient, but its not convenient for other person to pick up, caller texts to say “I called you back call me when you can”, text returned “sorry in middle of <whatever>, call in half an hour”, call, talk, done

Its probably why people don’t really call anyone anymore except parents and their DCs, often our lives are so busy when people (and it’s usually the hairdresser, dentist, random company in my case) call me out of the blue 90% if the times it’s not at a time or place I would choose to have that conversation.

TheNightingalesStarling · 09/10/2025 19:32

Addictforanex · 09/10/2025 19:29

Why do some people prefer to check the person they want to call is somewhere they can take a call before calling? I imagine because it is quicker and less friction, particularly with the invention of mobile phones. Many may be too young to remember Dom Jolly.

open phone, check location, call, talk (probably), done

vs what could be,

call, no answer, leave voicemail, person listens to voicemail, call gets returned when convenient, but its not convenient for other person to pick up, caller texts to say “I called you back call me when you can”, text returned “sorry in middle of <whatever>, call in half an hour”, call, talk, done

Its probably why people don’t really call anyone anymore except parents and their DCs, often our lives are so busy when people (and it’s usually the hairdresser, dentist, random company in my case) call me out of the blue 90% if the times it’s not at a time or place I would choose to have that conversation.

We just drop a text msg (or WhatsApp etc) and arrange a time.

Better than my now FIL who always seemed to ring now-DH when we were 'busy'... (but tracking if it had been a thing would have shown him at his flat!

AppropriateAdult · 09/10/2025 20:28

Etoile41 · 09/10/2025 16:18

We have a family circle on Life360.
My DD had a circle with her friends and I asked her to do the same with us so we could have peace of mind, especially when she went to university, as she was moving abroad. She had no issue with doing so. It is

I do admit to checking it very frequently at first, but now only check it very occasionally eg to know when is a good time to call, if travelling to check she has arrived safely, if she hasn't responded to msgs in a few days, etc It is not about control. I never ever comment about where she goes or if she's been out late, she is an adult and can do as she pleases, but knowing I can find her if I need to, gives me peace of mind.

Today is the perfect example. I checked my DSs (10) location as I had to meet up with him and I saw that my daughter had been in hospital since last night! I called her and thankfully she is ok but still waiting to be admitted.

Tracking really does serve a purpose and I'm glad that my children are happy to use it.

But surely if she had wanted you to know she was in hospital she would have told you? I really do think it’s odd to normalise this lack of privacy for a grown adult. However much you tell yourself it’s not about control, it absolutely is controlling, even if it’s not intended that way.

Addictforanex · 10/10/2025 08:21

TheNightingalesStarling · 09/10/2025 19:32

We just drop a text msg (or WhatsApp etc) and arrange a time.

Better than my now FIL who always seemed to ring now-DH when we were 'busy'... (but tracking if it had been a thing would have shown him at his flat!

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My DPs are in their 70s and don’t check texts / WhatsApp’s often. If I did that, the time I suggested would come and go and a couple of days later I might get a reply “I’ve only just seen your message…”.

I guess that’s why people do things in a way that work for them.

Amazing how many people are being regularly called whilst they are having sex. You lucky things!

Zimunya · 10/10/2025 10:22

Addictforanex · 09/10/2025 19:29

Why do some people prefer to check the person they want to call is somewhere they can take a call before calling? I imagine because it is quicker and less friction, particularly with the invention of mobile phones. Many may be too young to remember Dom Jolly.

open phone, check location, call, talk (probably), done

vs what could be,

call, no answer, leave voicemail, person listens to voicemail, call gets returned when convenient, but its not convenient for other person to pick up, caller texts to say “I called you back call me when you can”, text returned “sorry in middle of <whatever>, call in half an hour”, call, talk, done

Its probably why people don’t really call anyone anymore except parents and their DCs, often our lives are so busy when people (and it’s usually the hairdresser, dentist, random company in my case) call me out of the blue 90% if the times it’s not at a time or place I would choose to have that conversation.

Thank you for explaining this so much better than I could! That's exactly how it is.

BennyBee · 10/10/2025 10:44

Zimunya · 10/10/2025 10:22

Thank you for explaining this so much better than I could! That's exactly how it is.

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What I tend to do now (and my friends and relatives except parents also do) is to drop a quick text/WhatsApp: "are you free to chat" - reply "sure" or "give me ten minutes" or "at the theatre/work/etc, call tomorrow at 6pm."

You do not need to put anyone under surveillance to figure out whether they are available - just ask them! Its more respectful.