Thanks. As further proof of my tech incompetence, I’ve repeatedly proven myself incapable of creating pools, so I no longer even try.
Boy - the things you guys mention - like knowing when to put dinner on, is something I have never needed to track a family member’s phone to do. But hell, my wife and I still keep paper calendars, and have never had any inclination to change.
I’m sure my opinion differs from most of you, but I often wonder if people really think tech features like this really are an advantage, or if they are just so used to using their devices that they figure if the devices offers something - especially if it is new/an update - it must improve their lives. When people mention how they sorta passively began using this feature - well, that strikes me as somewhat creepy.
I mean, someone is traveling from 6 hrs away. They text you that they left at noon and expect to be there by 6 - and will text later if any delay. Dinner really has to be on the table at 6:01?
This degree of monitoring, precision and control really does not appeal to me.
I think this where there is a big difference between how you think of tracking, and how I think of tracking. For me, “control” doesn’t come into it.
If there is any control going on, it is to help regulate my behavior based on additional information, not control of what another person does.
For example, I know that my wife is on her way home, so I can delay the kid’s bedtime a few minutes until she gets back. There’s no thought of controlling when my wife leaves her activity, or where she went, just the practical aspect of adjusting the routine.
We both carry enough cash to cover the random appreciation gift and if I was going to spend a substantial amount of money on a gift for him, I would want his input because hobbies can be so specific.
We have had this ability for years, it is something we don’t even think about anymore. We live out in the sticks, being able to track each other just makes sense.
People are different. I don’t consider Hubs to be controlling and I certainly am not trying to control him. We are a team and agree that it is best to work together.
I didn’t use it for many many years, and then after having kids, it turned out to be quite useful. Does it necessarily improve my life because it’s some new functionality? Of course not. Did I discover it to be quite convenient? Yes. When my daughters ask “where’s daddy? Is he on his way home” or “where’s mommy? When is she coming home?” I don’t have to bug her, nor her me, to find that info. Just follow me on the map and I’m home when I’m home. And then they could decide if the kids want to/are allowed to stay up uptil I get home or not. My hours when working can be quite malleable. Why would I be worried or creeped out by my wife being able to see where I’m at? It’s not something that even enters my mind.
What about some autonomy? Being your own person, and not half of some Me And The Spouse entity?
The number of people here who don’t mind being tracked (and are willing to track their spouse) creep me out.
Maybe because my sister in law tracks her husband. And he hears about it if he stops somewhere on the way home. Once, he and I stopped at a business that was in a sub-basement. We got home to a whiny “Where werrrrre you? I was tracking you and you disappeeeeared…”
(She sounded very insecure, I was embarrassed for her)
Her grown kids heard her say that, and they were aghast: “Mom, you PROMISED you’d stop tracking Dad. That was a year ago, did you ever actually stop? No, because you CAN’T. You have to know what everyone’s doing all the time.”
My wife and I don’t share location with one another. We would have no objection to doing so in principle, but she has an iPhone and I have an Android and setting this up cross-device and keeping it functional over time is a minor pain in the ass. It’s possible by various means, of course, but we don’t regard it as being worth the hassle.
My older daughter, however, is 12, and starting secondary school (where we are in Europe, secondary school is the common combination of what in the US would be junior high plus high school). As we are living overseas and our daughter is in that difficult tween space where she wants to be independent but she isn’t quite capable of calm decision-making in a crisis, we will certainly be tracking the location of her phone (which we plan to acquire this weekend). This is not because we think she’s untrustworthy, but if she happens to get on the wrong bus after school or something, we need to be able to find her to retrieve her. This will be a temporary measure and we’ll turn it off in a couple-three years when she’s older and more confident.
I can completely understand why some people might find the idea intrusive, but I do share my location with my wife.
It’s partly reassurance (Oh good, she isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere, she’s stuck in traffic) and part life organising (I can put dinner on, as I can see she’s 30 minutes from home). Neither of us feel the need to hide, or find it intrusive.
Sometimes friends share their location with me if we’re due to meet up, and they can’t use their phone to let me know where they are because they’re driving. But only temporarily.
This kind of thought just never crosses my mind - unless she were grossly later than she said she’d be. But even then, I figure she is a responsible adult and knows how to handle herself. I just don’t presume the worst is going to happen.
I find it curious how many folk focus on the word “control”, but don’t mention “monitor”.
And folk often talk about the advantages of tech in terms of the additional “information.” From my perspective, this desire for more information is something of a red herring. One thinks more info will somehow make one’s life more manageable and better somehow, but they keep spending more time and effort trying to get more and better info… I guess I prefer my life a little rougher and vaguer around the edges.
I share locations with my wife and 3 teenagers (16,14,12) and all their devices, mostly by default. I use it fairly regularly to make sure they get up and go to school, or safely get to their destinations.
My wife uses it quite often to question why I’m at Home Depot again! Other than that I have nothing to hide.
In the summer we live off-the-grid on an island on Georgian Bay so when they go out in the boats or island hopping, I can find them.
They can turn it off (and do on occasion, I think) but they are good kids mostly and it hasn’t been a problem.
Besides, I paid for all their iphones with Airpods, share purchases, Apple Music and pay their monthly bills
My family (wife and a pair of 14-year-old twin boys) has an app to share our locations in a family group. It also gives alerts when we arrive or depart locations we’ve defined such as my offices, their school, the high school band hall, church, etc.
It’s extremely useful in knowing where everyone is and when they’ll be home plus the security of knowing if something happens to one of us one of the others will realize it and can check on us.
I’ve never found it to be invasive, but my wife and I are open books with each other. If my routine changes I’m going to tell her anyway. If I need some alone time and decide to go out for a bit, I tell her that and vice versa. We trust each other.
For the kids it’s super helpful with all the band, school and church trips to know where they are and how close they are to being back since we’re still playing chauffeur for a couple more years.
I totally understand how some people would have privacy concerns or be uncomfortable and get that it’s not for everyone because everyone’s relationships and sense of personal boundaries are different, but it works for us.
I understand your reticence, and I did share it at one time, but I find it more helpful overall and less intrusive in the sense my wife isn’t bugging me when I’ll be home or anything when I’m working and she could just check my location. I hate being interrupted with texts while working. That said, I think you imagine we use location finding more often than we actually do. I check my wife’s location maybe once in a week, if that, but weeks can go by when I don’t need it for any scheduling/planning. My wife checks mine probably just as often. She’s certainly not tracking my every move through the day. (Heck, I might be flattered if she was that possessive of me.) There have also been times I’ve accidentally had my tracking off for weeks or months and my wife wouldn’t mention it, until I asked he why is she calling/texting me when she could look where I am on the app. It’s something I like and want to share it with her because it makes my life a little bit easier.
My buddy Mike used to track his son’s phone. When kid was a senior in highschool, he was taking his gf to a movie. Mike’s wife was out of town visiting a sick relative, so we decided to go out to some bars.
Mike showed me on his phone that his son had picked up his gf and was driving toward the movie theater. Then the car made a turn and started heading towards Mike’s house! Oh, no!!! They were up to nasty stuff!!
Mike was pissed. We got in his car (he had picked me up) and started driving to catch the horny kids. We parked and entered the house, smoke billowing from Mike’s nostrils.
The girl was sitting in the living room, prim and proper. Mike yelled, “WHERE’S KID?”
Girl replied, “he’s in the bathroom, he had to poop”.
I’m not sure I know if our phones will do this (or is it an app?) but I’d love it for when my husband is traveling between our house and his folks’ place in FL. The worrying part of my mind wants to know where he is on I-95 in case he has an accident - at least I’d know which police to call… Yeah, I know, overreaction, but what’cha gonna do? I’d have liked it when my daughter and a friend made a cross-country trip between sophomore and junior years of college - again, just to know where to send the emergency response team…
Thankfully, my in-laws are moving near us, so those treks down the east coast are almost history. And my daughter lives in this county with her husband and kids, so no more cross-country trekking (and she’s 37 - kinda old for me to worry about her, right?) But I wouldn’t mind if my husband and I tracked each other. It’d save those “Where are you when will you be home” phone calls.
Hubby and I find this quite useful. It means he doesn’t have to remember to contact me to tell me that he arrived at band practice (30 minutes away) or left band practice. It’s there, but I probably look at it once a week, when he’s not answering his phone and we’re supposed to go somewhere. So I already know he’s nearby, and I can go get him (go to lunch or go home) or if he’s somewhere else, and I just have to wait until he comes back.
Yeah - I guess our dynamic is different. My wife doesn’t “bug me” about when I’d be home. Instead, I’d tell her when I expected to be home, and let her know if anything changed. And each person gets to choose how quickly they respond to texts. You only get interrupted by texts if you have a notifier on and think they need to be read/responded to immediately, as opposed to at some time that is of your choosing and convenience.
For a long time, I had the feeling she’d “bug me” when I did not give her a specific time that I’d be home from golf or something. I didn’t see why any specific time was needed if we had nothing else planned. But it mattered to her, and it was sufficient that I name some outside time that I’d be home by - say 3 p.m., and that I called her if I was later than that. Worked for us.
Again, just different ways folk choose to interact w/ their phones.
