Life360 encourages safety. Courtesy | Wikimedia Commons
It was 2 a.m. and I had just crashed my car at the bottom of a hill off on side of the freeway. I was lucky enough to find my phone, conscious enough to call my dad, but too hysterical to explain my exact location. Groggy after waking from a deep sleep, my dad muttered that he would just track my phone. My parents found me, helped me get my belongings from my car, and took me home within 30 minutes.
It was all because they were able to track my whereabouts.
Apple released the Find My Friends app in 2011, allowing individuals to share their locations with other Apple users for an hour, for the day, or indefinitely. This tool quickly became a way for parents to keep tabs on their children; with the touch of a button, their precise location could be revealed and followed.
As children begin to grow up, spend the night with friends, learn how to drive, and begin exerting their independence, it is necessary to establish parameters and accountability to prevent them from harming themselves and others.
With a car comes almost an unlimited amount of freedom. You don’t have to rely on your parents or siblings to drop you off at the movies, you can grab dinner with your friends whenever you desire, and go shopping at Target whenever you need new clothes. Yet this freedom also gives you the opportunities to go to that party without your family knowing, hide alcohol and other paraphernalia from your parents, and stay out until 2 a.m. on a Friday night simply because you can.
When I began driving, all of these opportunities became a reality. I could lie to my parents about where I was going, I could hangout with people that I knew were bad influences, and I had the chance to leave that sleepover and attend the houseparty instead. So why didn’t I do this in high school? Because there was always the chance that my mom would look at my location and know where I really was. Sharing my location with my parents kept me accountable and discouraged me from engaging in destructive and dangerous behaviors.
It’s easy to see these applications as draconian and something that stops the necessary progression as children learning how to handle their newfound freedom, but that’s overly dramatic, and everything needs to be used in moderation. Sure, lots of parents abuse this information and stalk their children, which is unhealthy. But the nature of parents having access to their child’s location simply makes sense from a safety perspective.
Most teenagers will admit they participated in things they shouldn’t have when they were in high school, and even if you promise you didn’t, there are inevitable dangers that come with teenagers growing up and driving. God forbid you get in a car accident, you get hurt, or you end up in an unsafe location, but in case it does, it’s simply safer for your parents to be able to find you in case of an emergency.
