A social experiment nobody signed up for
How mobile tracking has changed everything
Over the weekend Axios published a piece on ‘The teen loneliness machine,’ painting a bleak picture of how technology fuels the isolated existence of young Americans.
We already know that social media has exacerbated a teen mental health crisis. But beyond the constant scramble for likes and comments, there’s another, less discussed technological shift that’s fundamentally reshaping teen social life: mobile tracking.
Parents of teens ask me about tracking all the time. Teens are quick to raise the habit as something they recognize as problematic. Tracking is deeply embedded in Gen Z culture, yet, our public conversation barely touches on it.
When I was a teenager, parental tracking was already common practice. Weeks before I got my license in 2014, my parents started tracking me on Find my Friends, Apple’s location-sharing app. Back then, tracking was reserved for family – a way for hyper-involved parents to keep tabs on their kids. It wasn’t something we even considered doing with our friends.
Then in 2017, Snapchat launched Snap Map, normalizing peer-to-peer tracking and making it standard for friends to share their live locations. The feature allows users to see where their friends are at any given moment, as long as they’ve opted in. According to Snap, once a user sets it up, it can’t be disabled — though individuals can always choose to hide their location.
From there, the floodgates opened. Today, location-sharing among friends is the default. And it’s not just on Snapchat. Many young adults now have dozens of their friends’ locations permanently shared on Find my Friends.
Knowing where all of your friends are, all the time, is a bizarre phenomenon, yet it has been totally normalized for Gen Z.
Last night I asked my Instagram followers if they track their friends. The quick unofficial poll revealed that the vast majority of them do: 79% said yes, while 21% said no. The poll also highlighted a generational split. Those who said yes were mostly members of Gen Z, while the ‘no’ group had more millennials.
I also asked respondents why they track their friends. Here were some of their replies:
“Purely for safety reasons! Started in university and just kept it on since.”
“Track arrival times and locations to meet, trust, curiosity, safety”
“For my gfs safety for the boys randomly because of group chats where we all shared”
“Convenience, entertainment, safety (dating/late nights)”
“Safety or travel together”
“Honestly at first for safety but now that we’re out of college I don’t know”
And two separate people said they think of tracking their friends as the once-popular life simulation video game ‘Sims.’
The logic for sharing a location usually starts with a distinct purpose – a night out, a trip, a safety measure in a foreign city. But for most, it doesn’t stop there. I personally have 16 friends whose locations I can access at any time. That doesn’t include my boyfriend, which is another facet of the Gen Z tracking puzzle. Sharing your location with your significant other has become an unspoken requirement, a marker for your relationship status.
The Hidden Cost of Constant Visibility
I feel lucky to have gone through high school without the ability to know where my friends were at any given point. Today’s teens don’t have that luxury.
Social media fuels exclusivity and fomo – people see the party they weren’t invited to or the group outing they weren’t included in. Peer-to-peer tracking takes that to a whole new level. It removes the need for social media posts to reveal exclusion – location-sharing does it automatically. Instead of wondering if your friends are hanging out without you, you know.
And it’s not just about exclusion, it’s about how tracking changes the way teens navigate social life. Tracking changing the calculus for where teens go, who they see, and how they interact in public spaces. I’ve met teens who check Snap Map before going into the grocery store with their parents - if a classmate they don’t want to run into is there, they’ll stay in the car. Others check their friends’ locations before deciding whether to go somewhere at all.
I feel for all of today’s teens who have grown up in a culture of curation, with the complete elimination of chance encounters or spontaneity. Tracking eliminates the possibility of organic, unplanned social interactions – the moments that build social skills, resilience, and confidence in navigating unpredictable situations.
A Wall Street Journal piece from May 2023, ‘Why Teens Say Location Sharing Is the Greatest - And the Worst,’ highlighted this tension. One teen described location-sharing as “the norm” while another admitted, “you feel obligated to do it even though you know it’s not good for you.”
Beyond the mental health toll and constant overthinking that stems from the tech-enabled tool, Gen Z tracking habits reveal another truth: teens today are growing up in an era where privacy isn’t just compromised, it’s voluntarily surrendered.
What Are We Losing?
There’s an urgent conversation to be had about what this all means. At its core, location-sharing isn’t just about safety or convenience — it’s about control. It allows teens and young adults to curate their interactions, avoid discomfort, and bypass the unpredictability of real-world social life. But what’s lost in the process?
The avoidance of organic interaction will have consequences for how members of this generation socialize for years to come. Beyond that, by forgoing privacy at such a young age, this generation may no longer expect it.
The normalization of tracking could also change workplace culture and expectations for politicians. For a generation accustomed to this level of transparency, will the next generation of employees expect to know where their colleagues and bosses are at all times? What about constituents with their politicians?
And most importantly – how does it feel to grow up knowing that your presence is constantly being monitored? How will that anxiety manifest in the decades to come?
Noteworthy reads
How Covid Pushed a Generation of Young People to the Right, Derek Thompson for The Atlantic
The death of capital letters: why gen z loves lowercase, Nyima Jobe for The Guardian
Gen Z battling with phone anxiety are taking telephobia courses to learn the lost art of a call, Sawdah Bhaimiya for CNBC
And a new podcast
Political commentators and Cameron Kasky have a new podcast for
called FYPod focused on Gen Z politics and culture. Their first episode is called ‘We Need Hot Woke Alpha Males’ with social media personality Dylan Geick. It’s always a good time to talk about the politics of Gen Z, and I’m excited to see what’s in store with their new show.
It's ironic that so many think of tracking as increasing safety, when I keep thinking how these apps can be weaponized if a relationship turns abusive.
And I don't think it will be employees wanting to know where their bosses are, but bosses insisting on knowing their employees' locations at all times, that will be the more likely (and troubling) development
I found this article really engaging, but I disagree with the idea that technology inherently hinders organic connections. I’m actually developing an app that leverages location data specifically to encourage and facilitate real-world interactions.
Social dynamics have evolved, and technology is a tool—it can be used for better or worse. Unfortunately, much of what I see from big tech leans toward the latter which your article sheds a needed light on.