Sharing our location not only has negatively affected our relationships, but also our privacy and the information we share on the internet.
Sharing our real-time location has become a standard on many social media platforms. There are even apps dedicated to it, like Life360. This, while positive in certain situations, has taken control of our lives and our right to privacy.
Having people know your location will start to feel like you have to be at the places they want or expect you to be, and that can lead to questions like “Why did you go to that place?” or “What were you doing there?” That removes you from any independence.
We either share this information on platforms like Snapchat, which has a worldwide user map, or allow websites to access our location. We should start questioning why companies or users want this valuable information.
Sharing our location on a day-to-day basis
People have also taken the live location and turned it into a manipulative weapon that has affected connections between family, friends and romantic partners. Once you let somebody know and monitor where you are, you should have enough confidence in the other person to establish those new boundaries healthily.
However, I understand that in some situations, having your location monitored is best advised.
If there’s a teenager who’s going to need communication with their parents because they are away from home, or if anyone lives or moves around a dangerous area, then enabling location tracking for relatives is the best option.
But when it comes to our everyday life, we don’t need to have people constantly checking or being able to track our location at any given time. We are adults, so being independent and free of any control is the bare minimum to ask for.
We should rely on trusting one another rather than controlling each other’s every move.
What companies do with our information
Sometimes, our location is shared and sold by apps to other companies, and we are the ones who allow it.
This happens when we accept the pop-up window where an app asks for our location, and we do not read the terms that try to trick us into accepting them. Once given access, these companies can track our movement within a few yards and, in some cases, update our location to buyers more than 14,000 times a day.
I experience ads that appeal to my specific location across places like YouTube and online shops, and it makes me uncomfortable because I expect companies to know the country or state that I am in, but the exact city is very unnerving.
Companies will secretly collect our information, and that is something we should keep an eye on, because our data is important, and so is our privacy. If we mindlessly share it, then we can put anything that matters to us in danger since we don’t specify who or what is getting our information.
Usually, our data is used by other companies to personalize the ads that we see when we go on the internet, but there could be situations as bad as a burglar buying your location for a few days to know when you won’t be at home.
I don’t like companies knowing, sharing or selling the information of my whereabouts all the time because it makes me feel like I’m being watched and letting other people into my private life. Some might be fine with that, but it is a risk that you take when considering that nothing is erased on the internet; I wouldn’t want my personal life to be accessible to anyone.
The cons outweigh the pros in this case; we should only accept location tracking when it matters to our safety and keep from exposing it whenever we can.
Keeping our data safe is far more important than showing others where we are on social media.
It’s about not having anyone monitor us, and if anyone can buy the information on where we are, it’s an unsettling situation that can get worse in the future.
