Phone tracking while at university

[Fenimore]

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?

Well I'm obviously not understanding, what reason apart from the plane crashing would anyone need to check that it's landed?

But the phone tracking doesn’t keep anyone safe. That’s the point. I started the post because parents I know openly check their 18/19 year olds whereabouts. These young people are at university miles away. Has he turned up to his lecture? Why is he not in his room? It adds to their anxiety.

each to their own I guess… I don’t think it’s healthy though.

I definitely do not track. My DDs wouldn’t like it. Nor do I track my DH.

Barnaby, the boy who was murdered in those attacks did have life 360 and his parents could see his location after the attacks, they said so on a documentary about the attacks.

I’d imagine they’d find it really painful to read your post, given that being on life360 could not protect him.

I find this very interesting and wonder if it is another post covid lockdown thing?
It is very stifling to be checking on your Uni aged DC but have ppl been so used to knowing their every move they can't let go? Because my DC all in 20's and never heard of anyone doing this but I know ppl now who are.

You are not keeping them safe by essentially stalking them-frankly you are far away and powerless to do anything.

There was a very interesting article in The Telegraph about this a few weeks ago and the writer was basically saying she was doing this and all it was doing was making her anxious. She was staying up and was checking her phone at 3 am to see where they were and she realised she needed to let go to let them have some freedom and grow up. She stopped both for her piece of mind and theirs.

You can be very close to your children and allow them the space to grow without checking their snapchat location.
I agree with the posters above who have said it normalising stalking and ppl needing to know where you are all the time which is def controlling.

I think the ppl who are doing this are def needing to feel some level of control which just isn't there.

Yes, it's natural to worry for a short time. And then that worry begins to fade with time. Unless you employ these kind of unusual monitoring tactics - and then you are left in some kind of bizarre no-mans land and you are telling yourself and everyone else that constant monitoring is symbolic of how close you are to someone and saving your loved ones from death and rape. It seems to be inflaming anxiety to me rather than reducing it.

I track my 17yo and 19yo.

Both are driving themselves to school/uni
Both are happy being tracked.
They also track me and DH.
And my mum is on the tracking as well. She can track us all and we can all track her.
Various items are also airtagged - DS and DD have their keys and bags airtagged.

We find it useful.

It’s strange that people find it creepy. There’s nothing creepy about it. It’s practical and functional.

Sharing your location with immediate family is a lot less strange than posting stuff that randoms can see on Facebook, Instagram or whatever IMO.

DS’s friends’ parents also track them at uni.

I couldn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks of this, unless they are a member of my family.

DD's friend's mum tracks her, and sometimes texts asking her if she is spending enough time working because she is out and about too much. DD and her friends all think the mum is batshit.

I don't track my dd and wouldn't dream of doing so. I wouldn't want to be tracked myself, as think it's controlling and intrusive, so I wouldn't track someone else. DD's friends do have her location on Snapchat if there was a safety issue of any sort, and I would be able to contact them if I needed to.

You’re not protecting her at all. She could be murdered in her room or being raped at someone’s house and you’d know where she was, but not what was happening to her.

No, I don’t think your love for your child fades at all. Mumsnet is just quite strange in its belief that once you turn 18 you’re supposed to shun your family and pretend they never existed.

I definitely agree that it creates anxiety and is controlling.

99.9% of the time a young person is not where you expect due to a totally mundane reason.

And if they are at uni and not at their lecture, what do you do? Do you remind them as if they were 12? At what point should people take responsibility for their own lives and be allowed to make their own mistakes?

And if your son or daughter has pulled and is somewhere unexpected, do they get a text or call from Mum or Dad asking why they are somewhere strange? Mortifying!

Tracking at uni is definitely unhealthy and there are no meaningful positives as far as I can see.

It also meant that when my autie DD got stranded in london after a concert because TfL in their wisdom closed all the tubes from Wembley at 11.30pm we could see where she was. She couldn’t work out how to get to Waterloo, beside a 4hr walk (of course I know there are night buses and alt tube routes that probably weren’t closed, but it was past midnight by the time she and fellow passengers were turfed of their train, and she was full on panicking). She got into a taxi with two men who were going to a town not far from us/home - fortunately they were dads who’d been on a corp entertainment ticket and happy for her to call us. Because of the device tracking, we were able to see exactly where she was for the entire journey and which house she was waiting at at the end of her journey.

Coercive controlling people will find other ways to do what they do, just as they’ve always done long before the advent of smart phones.

As long as it is happening with the consent of those individuals I don’t think it’s a problem. Young people use Snapchat all the time and know exactly where their friends are some of these people are just acquaintances really and they know their location. I think that’s far more strange than close families who share location.

We can track our son by default, his device is in the family account to help us find it if it gets lost. We’re not tracking him, it’s the device! Son wants to be in the family account for the perks and device tracking. He’s fully aware that it means we can see where he is (if he’s with his device).
He trusts us, we trust him.

Do you think worry and love are the same thing? Am I not loving someone if I'm not worrying about them?

I am sorry to break it to some on here, but we are all being tracked every minute of every day. On car trackers, mobile phones track you, your banking, SM, CCTV and face recognition devices. You can barely move in this country. Snap and a whole host of other SM track movements too. This ship has truly sailed. Many young couples exchange their locations etc as part of a serious relationship! It’s not unusual now -

You don’t have to use official channels like find my or 360. You can just log in and see where your car is if they are using it, or watch them spend money on your card, or see where they snap their friends. Even WhatsApp you can see when they last checked.

I have relaxed about it all. It’s not like technology is going to reverse any time soon.

I think that if you truly don’t care where someone is, that shows a lack of love.

We have a family Apple account and all share our location willingly through find my phone, but no one actively tracks anyone. I generally forget that we have it tbh.

Also to add all I want to check is that my DD is safe at her uni accommodation after a night out. I have no idea what hat her lecture times are and if she does not attend.

Ridiculous.

It has nothing to do with not caring.

Anxiety isn't the same as love.

I don’t but it is very common on uni parents facebook group. Personally I think it isn’t appropriate to be monitoring if 18 - 21 yr old at lectures and nights out and then getting stressed when they aren’t doing as parent expects. It’s very much school mentality. They aren’t using it just in case of emergency they are literally checking been to every class or worrying been out 3 nights in a row etc. I don’t think that’s healthy for anyone.

I find it creepy to stalk kids but sure of it os mutual fine up to the people concerned

You think several “friends” having a location on Snapchat is safer than 3 or 4 immediate family members having a location on find my iPhone?!

My dd never shares her location on Snapchat. She is on Findmy with immediate family only.

So you're suggesting that the only options are shunning and tracking? Come on, you can't possibly think that

So, if nobody was monitoring your whereabouts, you wouldn't be loved?