Privacy Guides

I get the impression that many Gen Zers like to know where everyone is all the time. It's totally normal for them to have each other's GPS locations. Snapchat has a built-in map feature where you can watch your friends move around in real time, and there are other apps that offer this, too. I was blown away when I learned this was so commonly used and people just leave it on, so their social group just knows precisely where they are all the time.

Article reads as propaganda. No way that zoomers are into this. This just sounds like justification for abusive parents to spy on their children. As a GenZ, I don't recall having a single friend with this kind of arrangement with their parents, but then again I mostly hung around the more questionable crowd where you actually needed privacy. Would really hope we stop bickering among generations and actually fight for privacy together

This is arguably the first generation that grew up with zero privacy. Being watched is normal to them - and absolutely horrifying for this Gen-Xer.

GenZ here. I don't think so.

I'm 18 and fine with my parents knowing where I am so we can coordinate mealtimes and stuff. I really don't care for having a third party spy on me 24/7 though. We just Signal each other "I'm at xyz location, be back soon" and that's plenty enough.

I know it's just some rag bait nonsense, but I know as a fact most teens would never want their parents to constantly know where they are and monitor them constantly.

OP this post is just outrage bait. Business insider? Really?

I am Gen Z and I'm not fine with that. I chose to go to college far from where I grew up so that I would be independent and free and do stuff on my own accord, like buying a motorcycle.

Used to share my location with my dad until he kept sending me a McDonald's order everytime I was at McDonald's. Then turned it off, lol. My mum still has it.

I'm a gen zer and I would absolutely freak out. I'd rather not going out rather than being spied 24/7 by my parents. Seriously, this is the best way to kill trust between children and their parents. Now even the social relationship between parents and children has to be extremely toxic and anxiogenic as a basic minimum requirement

I mean their parents have probably been tracking them since they were kids so they just grew up thinking it's normal, I also recently learned kids in school feel awkward if they aren't walking to class while on their phone because then they feel like people will think they aren't cool enough to have people to talk to at all times

Life360 is the subject and the surveyor for this article so take it with a grain of salt. They want this to be normal. However, it does not change the fact that clearly Gen Z is more open to this than previous generations at least to some degree.

As a parent, I do plan on using the services, but definitely not daily and I want my kids to have a say in the matter. What’s important is they feel safe.

Speaking as GenZ (or Millennial, depends who you ask for the definition): fuuuuck that.

Speaking to the article specifically: I don't trust a surveillance vendor to work honestly when surveying the acceptance of their surveillance tool. The article also fails to mention (if it does, it's so brief I missed it) that the pressure some parents put on their kids to install and allow these kinds of spyware is immense. The kid having it on does not equate to the kid choosing to have it on.

Im fine with my parents knowing where i am the only problem is that i would also share my location with big daddy google and im not fine with that. And my parents are divorced so i wouldnt share it with my dad... Also it would drain my battery

I'm ok with my parents knowing where I am at all times(frankly, they don't care much about that which is good)

I'm not ok with meta knowing about it

Business Insider is straight AIDS

There are more secure location sharing apps out there that are end to end encrypted. My family uses Zood location https://www.zood.xyz/ when we are out and about and needing to coordinate our locations. It is handy to use sometimes but it doesn't do all the spy stuff the other apps do.

It seems really pathetic to me when parents can't offer their teens privacy. I have a child and I want him to trust me. Invading privacy feels like it would have the opposite effect and create a very one-sided relationship. You can ask my mom how much she knows about me now and its considerably less than my boxing mates.

*rolls D-100* ... I disbelieve!

I actually think these apps are perfectly fine, I just think that you should have to request the location from the phone and then that request also alerts the kid.

I’ll paint a different picture for parents in this thread. Gen Z does not have adequate social spaces in which to exist. So when you say “hey I’m going to track you” it’s like oh cool, track me going where exactly? To basketball practice and back? Or to the mall so you can know which store I’m in?

Parents are gaining more and more control over their kids and I don’t think it’s good. They aren’t independent people. As a kid I hated having zero autonomy, it sucked. So all this is achieving is making kids feel like it’s less hassle to just stay at home and play video games.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The rising popularity of location tracking apps such as Life360 suggests that young people are increasingly happy for their parents to be able to see where they are all the time.

Other apps such as Google's Family Link and Apple's Find My are also being used by Gen Z to share their location with parents and friends while they travel to school, drive – or even during dates.

Location tracking can be turned off and on so that a user can maintain privacy when they want it, but according to a 2022 survey carried out by The Harris Poll, 16% of US adults have the setting activated all the time.

"The turbulence of Gen Z's adolescence spawned a mental health crisis that was only amplified by the pandemic, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle," said Dr Michele Borba, a educational psychologist and spokesperson for Life360.

Seventy-two percent of GenZ female respondents said they believed their physical wellbeing benefits from location sharing, per the survey.

"There's an intimacy that's intertwined with that act," Michael Sake, a senior lecturer in digital sociology at City, University of London, told The New York Times.

The original article contains 419 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 54%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

There was a great Black Mirror episode about constant parental supervision.