In 2024, location sharing between teenagers and their parents is common and has evolved over the past decade. Before the digital age, parents had to trust their children that they were where they said they would be and trust that they had sent their children into the world with enough knowledge to get themselves out of a mess if they had to, knowing they could always ask for help if they needed it. The feature to instantly share one’s whereabouts has become a standard feature. This constant act of surveillance can be intrusive and feel invasive. The implications of this technology have extended far beyond mere convenience and have resulted in concerning dynamics of trust between teenagers and their families.
Justifications of Location Sharing
There are a few justifications for sharing your location with others. These include safety, part of a “parent’s right” in the parent-child relationship because friends like sharing their locations, and between two people in a romantic relationship. Location sharing has become deeply ingrained in modern teen socialization. While parents often justify this with safety concerns, it can frequently feel invasive to the teen. Despite its convenience, it underscores the underlying issues of trust, autonomy, and surveillance that must be addressed.
Kenna Hart is a current guidance counselor in Seattle Public Schools and is studying to help individual parents, children, and families succeed. She also has her teenagers, who have helped her gain insight into her views on parenting and location sharing. “First of all, I think it starts even before a phone is involved, in that you’re building a relationship with your child and you’re building trust with your child,” Hart said. Being able to track your kids means that they have a phone in the first place to use. Before a phone is involved, the relationship with your kid grows, and trust is continually built. “If you feel like you need to constantly be checking their location, to me at least it shares that there is another problem on hand, other than wanting to know where your kid is. It also says to me that you have some problems with trust and feeling like you can rely on your teenager to be where they say they are going to be.” This can help pinpoint one of the main problems with location sharing.
One of the most concerning impacts of location sharing on teenagers is its effect on trust dynamics within relationships. Excessive monitoring can erode trust and hinder the development of autonomy and independence in teenagers. It’s crucial to remember that trust is built, not enforced.
Payton Kujat, a senior at Skyline, said, “My mom will check my location all the time to see where I am. She says that it is because she wants to make sure I get to where I am supposed to be going safely, but she could just call or text me. I feel like that would be better. Sometimes it feels a little creepy.” If a parent needs to check on their child, initiating a call or text is more beneficial without constantly viewing their location. Communication, not surveillance, is the key to a successful relationship, even within the family dynamic.
Despite parents feeling more comfortable with their children going out because they can check where they are going, this is only due to a perceived and superficial sense of safety. Phones can die, location-service apps can glitch, and parents need to have enough trust in their kids that they will know what to do and figure things out for themselves. Similarly, kids can turn off the location services on their phones if they want to in the hopes that their parents won’t notice, leaving them to face the repercussions of their actions afterward. All this goes to say there is no natural way to ensure you have your teenager’s location, which is why it is best to communicate healthily before they leave the house and call them if something comes up while they are gone or something is wrong.
Preparing Teens for Making Decisions in their Future:
Raising a teenager is about helping and preparing them for the real world. This includes letting your teenager ask for help, know their limits, and listen to their moral compass.
“If it’s always the parent being the authoritative one, it doesn’t give the kid a chance to learn a lesson on their own,” Hart said. “Then it’s a parent vs kid thing as opposed to a kid trying to figure out the world and figure out more independence.” The power dynamic Hart speaks about is an essential element that highlights the problems with location sharing. It is one more piece of power parents have to hold over their kids’ heads that they can use to enforce punishment.
It has shown that teenagers are much more likely to learn from their mistakes if they are the ones to call themselves out and fix them, rather than parents enforcing rules and grounding their kids. Sometimes, teenagers make mistakes and must learn how to escape them. If teenagers do not have enough freedom to figure out their messes when they know that a parent can step in in college or post-college, they will also be unable to handle this issue.
Hart adds that being worried about kids is a valid fear because of her love for her children, but she revealed that she has never actually had to use it. “What I’ve said to my kids is that they need to learn to navigate the world and make decisions about what’s good for them. and If I am ever worried about [them] then I have this tool as a parent and I will use it to keep them safe, because above all, I love my kids and I want to make sure they’re safe.” This method of sharing location makes sense because it acknowledges the fear of a lack of safety while not being intrusive. If necessary, measures will be taken to ensure the safety of her children, but she will only do that if it is the worst-case scenario.
In a hypothetical situation, Hart shares that the only reason that would cause her to contact her son, who is currently a senior in high school, would be in a worst-case scenario. Before he leaves to hang out with friends, they discuss when he would most likely be home by agreeing on a time together. If it became later than that time, she reflects and says that she would first resort to reaching out to her son through texting or calling. If there was no response for an extended period or if her son was more than an hour late to the time they agreed upon for him to be at home, then, and only then, would she look at his location out of justified fear for his safety and well-being.
Sharing Locations Among Friends:
Teens also share their locations with their peers, which can be problematic. While it can foster a sense of closeness and accountability within social circles, it can lead to expectations of constant availability and scrutiny. The pressure to share location can lead to feelings of invasion of privacy. This can also impact mental health with the arising feelings of exclusion if someone sees that their friends are all hanging out without them. Navigating the boundaries of trust is essential in maintaining healthy relationships, and there is no reason why a friend would need your home location.
In romantic relationships, many people share their locations with their significant others without much reason other than like to have it.
Problems Surrounding Sharing Location with your Significant Other:
A popular location tracking app called Life360 has made it abundantly clear that it knows many people share their location with their significant others to prevent cheating. The official Life360 account has posted videos on TikTok making jokes about girlfriends repeatedly viewing their boyfriend’s location to ensure they are where they are supposed to be.
Madelyn Huston, a junior in high school, shares her location with her boyfriend out of agreement as part of their relationship. “It feels like he doesn’t trust me and he checks it a lot, even when I tell him where I’m going, almost as if he’s making sure I’m not lying.” Despite this “mutual agreement” to share her location, she sometimes feels invasive and doesn’t understand why this is necessary. This acknowledgment of a lack of trust between two people in their relationship, mixed with the involvement of humor at this lack of faith, only works to emphasize the problems with sharing their location. They are making light of the issue of lack of confidence in relationships.
Popularity of Location Sharing:
As TikTok is primarily an app marketed towards “Generation Z,” they are reaching their target audience through these videos. On their website, the headline for their article states, “For Gen Z, (Location) Sharing Is Caring.” This part of their page displays statistics from their survey, which states that Gen Z remains the generation most likely to share their location with a parent, at a surprisingly large 56%. This number is significant; however, when you think about it, it makes sense that Gen Z is the generation that shares their location the most because millennials are at the age where they make decisions entirely independently of their parents, and before that, tracking your children was not possible because this technology is new and evolving quickly. While this page on their website describes how many people feel comfortable sharing their locations, it is marketing their app as being embraced by Gen Z and marketing their app towards the younger generation.
Recognizing that location sharing is beneficial when used consensually and responsibly is essential. In best-case scenarios, it can enhance safety and foster communication skills between teens and their friends and between teens and their parents. The key to making this work is open communication and establishing location-sharing boundaries.
While the decision about sharing location is ultimately up to the individuals involved, and there is no correct answer about how to address how to respond to the changing technology related to location sharing, one thing is clear: location sharing should not be a replacement for trust in a relationship or healthy communication. Location sharing can raise complex questions about privacy and autonomy and needs to be handled with care. It is okay to utilize it if it works best for your situation, but fostering a culture of respect when using technology in our evolving world is crucial.