Location Sharing: Strengthening Bonds or Big Brother Surveillance? Sharing your location with friends and family – is it a modern way to stay connected or an invasion of privacy? Explore the evolving cultural impact of location-sharing apps like Find My Friends, examining generational attitudes and the implications for relationships. Discover how location sharing affects connection, trust, and the dynamics of modern friendships
Location sharing: Strengthening friendships or Big Brother surveillance? Eighteen friends and family share their location with me via Find My Friends, creating a real-time digital map of our connections. Seeing their daily routines and special moments, even from afar, strengthens our bonds. But is this always a positive? Explore the generational perspectives on location sharing apps and how this technology impacts modern relationships
Location sharing: a digital town square or Big Brother? While some cherish the connection fostered by always-on location tracking apps like Find My Friends, others view it as a modern surveillance nightmare. The Washington Post even called it "miserable." This article explores the generational divide on location sharing, examining the evolving role of technology in friendships and relationships, from the casual sharing of Gen Z to the more complex feelings of Millennials. Is constant location access a bond-strengthener or an invasion of privacy? Discover how your age and life stage might influence your perspective
Location sharing: Is it a modern friendship essential or a privacy nightmare? This technology's impact on relationships reveals much about evolving friendships, life stages, and our increasingly digital world. Explore how location-sharing apps like Find My Friends affect different generations and the changing dynamics of connection and privacy
Location sharing apps: Are they strengthening friendships or invading privacy? Author Anna Goldfarb ("Modern Friendship: How to Nurture Our Most Valued Connections") calls the convergence of friendship and location-sharing technology a "culturally and historically new phenomenon," raising important questions about its impact on our relationships. This unprecedented level of connection, facilitated by apps like Find My Friends, allows us to virtually map our social networks and observe each other's daily lives. But is this constant connectivity a boon or a burden? Explore the generational differences in attitudes towards location sharing and its implications for modern friendships
Location Sharing: A Generational Divide? Gen Z and Gen X embrace location sharing technology, but for Millennials, it reflects evolving friendships and relationships. This exploration of three generations reveals how location sharing impacts connection and privacy in today's digital age
Location sharing: a modern friendship dilemma? This evolving technology reflects our digital age, impacting relationships and raising privacy concerns. Explore the generational differences in attitudes towards location sharing apps like Find My Friends, from Gen Z's acceptance to millennial anxieties and beyond. Discover how constant connectivity shapes our bonds and the debate surrounding surveillance versus connection
As a young Gen Z adult, most of my friends are single and childless, leading similar active lifestyles. This shared lifestyle means knowing each other's locations isn't a problem; location sharing is simply not a major concern amongst my peer group
Millennials, Childless & Unmarried: Location Sharing & Life Stage
Delayed marriage and parenthood are impacting how millennials view technology like location sharing. This generation's unique life stage, characterized by later marriage and childbearing, aligns with historical trends. Understanding this context is crucial to interpreting their attitudes towards digital connection and privacy
For Aiden Lewis, a 26-year-old Boston-area PhD student, location sharing with family offers simple convenience
Sharing my location with loved ones: the pros significantly outweigh the cons. While there's a minimal risk of embarrassment (like my parents seeing my late-night outings!), the benefits of strengthening bonds and staying connected far exceed any potential downsides. Find My Friends app location sharing: is it a modern friendship essential or a privacy nightmare?
Gen Z embraces location sharing: A 2022 Harris Poll reveals Gen Z (1997-2012) leads in convenient location sharing adoption. For many, it's simply another helpful digital tool, strengthening bonds and enhancing connection with friends and family. But is location sharing always a positive? Explore the generational differences in attitudes towards location sharing apps and the impact on modern relationships
Gen X, Millennials, and Location Sharing: A Generational Divide? Author Anna Goldfarb highlights the impact of location-sharing apps like Find My Friends on modern relationships. Reflecting on her younger self, Goldfarb notes the appeal of always knowing friends' whereabouts. This article explores how location sharing affects friendships across generations, from Gen Z's acceptance to Millennials' more complex feelings, revealing the cultural shift this technology represents in our connected world
Location sharing: a millennial perspective. My twenties revealed evolving relationship dynamics reflected through location data: couples spending more time together, higher-earners frequenting upscale locations, and others pursuing further education. Even severing location access symbolized life stage transitions, highlighting the evolving role of technology in modern friendships and relationships. This reflects broader generational shifts in attitudes towards location sharing and its impact on connection and privacy
Millennials (born 1981-1996) and Location Sharing: A Generational Divide? This generation's diverse perspectives on location-sharing apps like Find My Friends reveal a complex relationship between technology, privacy, and modern friendships. Are location-based apps strengthening bonds or fostering surveillance anxieties? Explore the millennial experience with location sharing and its impact on relationships
Meranda Hall, a 33-year-old in Brooklyn, operates more like a Gen Zer in this realm. She doesn’t have any married friends, and she said she never plans to marry. She and her friends have no qualms about sharing their locations.
“All the people that I share mine with, they’re super open about it, and no one is ever anywhere particularly interesting for it to be too much of a debate,” Hall said.
For her peers of similar ages but a different life stage, like Goldfarb, location sharing might be more fraught. After age 30, Goldfarb said, friendships start falling off a cliff; people move, have kids, take on different jobs, or prioritize relationships relevant to their careers.
“When you get older, you tend to have different perspectives on your friendships,” she said. “You don’t need your friends to know where you are at all times when you’re older, because you probably have children, spouses, in-laws, there’s just different relationships that bubble to the surface in my opinion,”
In my informal surveying, which also included several coworkers, millennials were the most likely to have very strong thoughts on location sharing. Some outright hated it, although still shared with one or two friends, and others felt no need for it, unless they were happily coupled and shared with spouses. Some said they found it to be strangely intimate.
Olivia Bethea, 31, said she only shares with four people. She said she’s noticed location sharing coming up more in regular conversations, with people offhandedly referencing that they checked where someone else was. She doesn’t see herself expanding her location-sharing circle more.
“A lot of people end up sharing where they are anyway on Instagram and stuff, but I’m finding myself to be a little bit more protective over it,” she said. “People can make a lot of inferences from your location, and I just don’t want to invite those inferences.”
Millennials grew up before everyone carried an always-on GPS device at all times. A concern that I heard repeatedly was about surveillance and willingness to constantly reveal where they were, which doesn’t seem to bother the always-tracked and always-online Gen Zers.
“Millennials, it wasn’t something that we always had. I guess if you’re Gen Z, it’s kind of always been a thing,” Hall said, adding, “I guess it’s just something to be skeptical about.”
When I spoke to Gen Xers about location sharing, I was met with a proverbial shrug. The forgotten generation, born 1965 to 1980, doesn’t seem to be too pressed about location sharing, although they’re not eager to adopt the practice either.
Meredith Finn, a Gen Xer in her 50s in Maine, said she thinks she missed the location-sharing bandwagon completely. It would’ve been more fun in college, on a night when all her friends were out at different bars.
“I remember nights when we’d go from bar to bar looking for some of our friends, and we’d just miss them,” she said. “And it just would’ve been kind of nice to be able to see where everybody was hanging out. Of course, we didn’t have anything like that. We didn’t even have cellphones when I was in college.”
She said that she’d probably be willing to share her location with a few friends. But if anyone came up to her and asked to share her location, “I think I would say, ‘Why? Just send me a text and ask me where I am.'”
Leslie Lancaster, a 47-year-old in California, felt similarly — she said she’s shared location when she’s navigating somewhere difficult to find on a map, or trying to find friends in rural locations. Lancaster said she can see the benefits of it, but also how it could become controlling in the wrong hands.
“For myself, my husband and I, I don’t need to know where he’s at all the time. So that’s why I probably wouldn’t share my location with him, unless I were potentially off on a vacation or a trip where I was not with him,” she said.
Both Gen Xers said they could see its utility in a time when folks are struggling to connect or feeling more isolated. Lancaster said she could understand the impulse to see where your friends are, even if you’re not actively communicating.
“People are so isolated now. I mean, since the pandemic and a lot of work from home, a lot of people are just in their little bubbles,” Finn said, adding that it’s rarer to pop into your regular coffeeshop and run into five friends. “It doesn’t happen the way it used to.”
Like many technological advances, your thoughts on location sharing are a reflection of your own situation. It’s at a crossroads of issues facing our social lives: The lack of third spaces has put them into our phones, social circles are shrinking, and we’ve had to use technology to fill the gaps.
I’m sure Gen Alpha, born 2010 to 2024, will come up with something that horrifies and shocks me (they’re already back on Snapchat). As I creep toward age 30, I am thinking about the ways the social contours of my life have changed; in speaking with other Gen Z peers, we all realized we had a few friends we’d fallen out of touch with who were still lingering on Find My Friends. Right now, though, it feels mean to pull the cord.
“I predict that this is something that you’re going to change your relationship with,” Goldfarb told me. She added, “I think that it’s more likely that it’s going to be a more concentrated friend group that will need to know this about you.”
Do you have strong thoughts or feelings about location sharing? Contact this reporter at jkaplan@businessinsider.com.
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