Stop Tracking Your Loved Ones

On a busy weekend, my husband, Bran­don, took our three chil­dren to the park so I could work. When he didn’t respond to my text asking him to hit the grocery store on the way home and I couldn’t track him on Find My Friends, I called. With the music blaring and all four of my boys singing loudly off-key, my every-two-minute phone calls went unno­ti­ced. All eight of them.

In my mind, I conju­red images of a horri­ble car acci­dent—my entire family gone in an instant. After 15 minu­tes, I became so unhin­ged that I left the house and star­ted driving the route they would take to get home while asking Siri to dial again. As I turned the corner onto the main street, I spot­ted our van. Then, a few seconds later, I saw Bran­don’s head bobbing to the music as I passed him going the other direc­tion.

I had to ask myself: Was having the ability to imme­di­a­tely reach a loved one—or at least pinpo­int their loca­ti­on—s­tres­sing me out? Nancy Colier, a New York-based licen­sed clini­cal social worker, reve­rend, and author of The Power of Off: The Mind­ful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World, tells me my neuro­sis of needing to reach people instantly isn’t an anomaly in the digi­tal age. In fact, Colier says, with all of the texting, moni­to­ring, and trac­king, most of us are living in a cons­tant state of anxi­ety.

“It used to be that we would go for long peri­ods without knowing where some­one was, ” Colier says. “Now, there has been a para­digm shift from 'the world is a safe place we can trust’ to 'if we don’t micro­ma­nage and control every moment, somet­hing terri­ble will happen.'”

Yet there’s plenty of evidence to suggest our loved ones, friends, and even our chil­dren are safer in the world today than they were in the 1990s—in terms of violent crime, child abduc­ti­ons, and motor vehi­cle acci­dents. Plus, in the unli­kely event of an actual emer­gency, autho­ri­ties can use cell phone tower data to locate our broods. So do we really need trac­king tech­no­logy?

Manage Your Trac­king Impul­ses

For most people, moni­to­ring family members’ move­ments typi­cally begins as a virtu­ous pursuit. Parents, spou­ses, and anyone concer­ned about an elderly rela­tive can use apps like Life 360, mSpy, and Fami­Safe to make sure their loved ones are safe—and that they can reach them in an emer­gency. (Although we strongly advise against using such apps, for a vari­ety of reasons.)

In recent years, I’ve relied on Find My Friends as a sort of crys­tal ball that reas­su­res me everyt­hing is as it should be. I use it to make sure my mom, siblings, and husband have made it from point A to point B, and in Bran­don’s case to find out if he’s left the office. A bonus: Letting family members track me has lifted the burden of needing to check in when I get where I’m going.

But in an era when parents can moni­tor their kids’ every move, teens follow their crush’s digi­tal foot­print, and spou­ses like me freak out when their fami­lies go dark for 15 minu­tes, a growing number of experts are ques­ti­o­ning whet­her it’s healthy to be this connec­ted to our loved ones.

“One of the biggest risks these tech­no­lo­gies pose is they make us more neuro­tic, ” says Pamela Wisni­ewski, an asso­ci­ate profes­sor at the Univer­sity of Central Florida whose rese­arch focu­ses on the inter­sec­tion of human-compu­ter inter­ac­tion, social compu­ting, and privacy. “If all we’re getting is meta­data that some­one isn’t where we expect them to be, that can make us anxi­ous.” It can even cause us to leap to erro­ne­ous conclu­si­ons that sabo­tage our daily acti­vi­ties.

While these tech­no­lo­gies are inten­ded to miti­gate risk, at their worst, trac­king apps can trig­ger proble­ma­tic false alarms when there’s a glitch. Take the time I saw my mom seemingly stuck two blocks from her home. When I reali­zed her loca­tion hadn’t moved in 30 minu­tes, I worried she had taken a spill while walking the dog. It turns out her battery died while she was stro­lling through the neigh­bor­hood.

“We have this sort of magi­cal thin­king that if we know where our loved ones are, we can some­how save them from a dange­rous world, ” says David Green­field, PhD, ABPP, and foun­der and direc­tor of The Center for Inter­net and Tech­no­logy Addic­tion. The apps are marke­ting to our primal fear of discon­nec­ting from our loved ones. But is the bene­fit of percei­ved safety worth the excess anxi­ety? Or is there more bliss in igno­rance?

Consi­der Trac­king Pitfalls

The truth is, there are legi­ti­mate reasons why you might not want some­one to track your every move. «It could be as virtu­ous as some­one wanting to buy a surprise gift for a loved one, or maybe somet­hing a little risky, like a teen wanting to be alone with her boyfri­end, » says Wisni­ewski. “To some extent, that boun­dary-pushing, that privacy, is healthy, parti­cu­larly during the teenage years.”

Each soci­ally rewar­ding reason to use trac­king tech comes with a privacy-rela­ted or anxi­ety-indu­cing conse­quence. The most obvi­ous pitfall: Trac­king breeds a lack of trust, espe­ci­ally when it’s used to police kids’ beha­vior.

“You’re not only feeding your own anxi­ety, but you’re also commu­ni­ca­ting that you don’t think your kid can hack it in the real world without your help—and that can have devas­ta­ting conse­quen­ces for you, your child, and your rela­ti­ons­hip, ” Green­field says. It can even impact their ability to success­fully launch into adult­hood.

For exam­ple, kids who are trac­ked may not become as self-reli­ant as their untrac­ked coun­ter­parts. “Chil­dren deve­lop a sense of confi­dence when they’re encou­ra­ged to go out into the world without safety nets, ” says Green­field. “They make mista­kes, trip and fall, run out of gas, and they become more compe­tent as a result.”

Experts agree that trust, privacy, and the oppor­tu­nity to make mista­kes—and grow from them—­trump the sense of percei­ved safety we get from consis­tent moni­to­ring. “If you’re using geo-trac­king to find out if your kid is on his way home so you can start making dinner, that’s a healthy use, ” says Wisni­ewski. “But if it gets to the point of obses­sive moni­to­ring, that’s unhe­althy survei­llance.”

What’s more concer­ning: Trac­king tech­no­lo­gies could place your loved ones at grea­ter risk. When teens know parents are follo­wing their every move, they may find ways to disa­ble loca­tion-sharing, Wisni­ewski says. They buy burner phones, remove batte­ries from their devi­ces, power down. Then, in a true emer­gency, even the police can’t pinpo­int their exact loca­tion.

Pause Before Stal­king

Once I recog­ni­zed the angst that came with trac­king, I deci­ded to take a diffe­rent appro­ach. Instead of grip­ping tigh­ter to gain more control, I iden­ti­fied ways to surren­der and let go.

“The idea is to inter­rupt the addic­tive and uncons­ci­ous impulse to react to our 'not knowing what to do with oursel­ves’ feeling, ” Colier says. “More often than not, trac­king and cons­tant commu­ni­ca­tion is a way to avoid the silence of spen­ding time with oursel­ves.”

Now, when I’m about to check Find My Friends or fire off a “where are you?” text, I pause, take a breath, and ask myself, Why am I trac­king? Do I really need to know this person’s loca­tion? Or am I trying to escape some other feeling? Then, What does it feel like to sit with the discom­fort without anest­he­ti­zing it with commu­ni­ca­tion and content?

Once I reali­zed I didn’t have to respond to every thought—t­hat I could allow the unli­kely tragic scena­rio to play out in my mind without acting on it—I felt more at ease. I also began turning to medi­ta­tion apps such as Calm, Heads­pace, Insight Timer, and Ten Percent Happier. After flexing that muscle for a few weeks, I was finally able to power down my device during times of stress and focus on breat­hing (knowing that if I really need to make an emer­gency call, Alexa is at the ready).

Can’t allow your­self to power down? Myriad apps and tools can help you deve­lop healt­hier tech use. I disco­ve­red that calen­da­ring appli­ca­ti­ons like Calendly and Cozi allow me to moni­tor the big pictu­re—I know which events and acti­vi­ties my loved ones have on the books so I don’t need up-to-the-minute trac­king of their every move. And instead of cons­tant moni­to­ring, I use text messa­ging to check in when I can’t tole­rate the low-level worry.

I’ve also enabled featu­res that use push alerts in real emer­gen­cies rather than passive survei­llance. Apple SOS, for exam­ple, sends your emer­gency contacts auto­ma­tic text messa­ges contai­ning your loca­tion whene­ver you make an emer­gency SOS call. And Google’s crisis alert tool allows you to share your loca­tion with others when an emer­gency (earth­quake, school shoo­ting, fire, or flood) happens near you.

“You have to become aware of which tech­no­lo­gies and commu­ni­ca­ti­ons stress you out and which help you feel more at ease, which apps add to your quality of life and which detract from it, ” says Colier.

Admit­tedly, I haven’t disa­bled Find My Friends. But now my mom and Bran­don are the only people I track—and I no longer use the feature daily or even weekly. Instead, if I’m feeling anxi­ous, I remind myself that there’s a good chance my loved ones are safe and I send them a text messa­ge—“I hope you’re singing at the top of your lungs.” Then I turn off my noti­fi­ca­ti­ons and open Ten Percent Happier.