I don’t think enough attention is placed on convincing people to DISABLE location sharing to people they may know.
It’s hard to say no if you’re in a tight social circle already, but sometimes people will outright distrust you for not doing so.
God forbid a bad actor obtains access to a single device, not just even a phone, and can literally stalk someone.
Anyone else who had to deal with people insistent on sharing location?
In my country, this isn’t a trend limited to Gen Z. Across generations, there’s been a persistent tendency to demand self-disclosure—often at the cost of one’s privacy—as a condition for closeness or trust within social groups.
For example, about 20 years ago, in certain university clubs or insular workplaces, newcomers were expected to participate in “initiation rituals” or “party tricks” that involved nudity or invasive physical contact. In some serious cases, these crossed the line into sexual harassment or assault. Refusing to comply often meant risking one’s place in the community. These practices were long tolerated before they were finally recognized as social problems.
Even about 10 years ago, it was still common in some circles to pressure others to drink excessively at social gatherings, or to use intoxication as a way to extract unwanted confessions or enforce coerced intimacy. Such behaviors were often justified as being “part of the atmosphere” or “just how things are,” and those who resisted were criticized for “not reading the room.”
Legally, regulations against sexual and power harassment have gradually been introduced, and overtly abusive behavior has become less common, at least on the surface. But this is often because “the law prohibits it,” not because the underlying values have changed. As a result, the same power dynamics and rights violations continue in subtler, harder-to-see forms.
Take location sharing, for example. When the act of sharing or not sharing your real-time location starts to function as an implicit measure of trust or closeness, it ceases to be a truly voluntary choice. There’s a significant difference between choosing to share your location and feeling socially pressured to do so. And this pressure, as in many past examples, tends to arrive wrapped in the logic of the group—before the individual has a chance to think.
The act of sharing itself isn’t the issue. But once it becomes a social default, people who choose not to share are seen as unusual, or even suspicious. They may be expected to explain themselves. And because the pressure often comes cloaked in ideas like “safety” or “trust,” it becomes even harder to resist—especially for younger people, who are most immersed in always-on digital relationships.
In my own circles, I often see situations where location sharing is treated as normal, even expected. Refusing to share can be perceived as cold, uncooperative, or evasive. And when privacy-conscious behavior is viewed not as a neutral choice but as a breach of social norms, that reveals a deeper misunderstanding—one not unique to my country, I suspect.
I’m an elder gen Z and I’m sorry but I find it insanely creepy and invasive to not only normalize location sharing but to expect it as a non-negotiable condition of being in a family, friendship, or relationship. Luckily nobody in my family uses those apps like life360 and none of my friends have ever expected to use location sharing. That’s a hard boundary with me because expected location tracking was weaponized agaisnt me and even though I have nothing to hide I refuse to do it outside of emergency situations.
One of my exes would get mad at me whenever I pushed back against having my snap map turned on all the time (this was 2017-2019, before location sharing became super widespread among gen z). He insisted it was a metric of trust, and because I refused to keep it on he felt like he couldn’t trust me and obviously our relationship didn’t mean anything to me, because obviously if I wasn’t trying to hide something I’d have no issues with him having 24/7 access to my location.
It’s honestly scary how guarding your privacy and anonymity is conflated with criminality or hiding malice.
Find My is actually the main reason I’m NOT switching to GrapheneOS. This is a safety thing for me and someone critical in my life living in not the safest area.
But sharing with random people and friends is a big no on my list. I only share my location with that one person.
@overdrawn98901
This is in development: https://coagulate.social/
Uses the Veilid network.
I heard of scenarios where entire friendships, not just relationships, ended because one person was insecure enough to check whether someone’s location was turned off or shows that they skipped a hangout.
Just because you CAN share your location does not mean you need to. It is frankly disgusting that trust doesn’t extend to respecting one’s boundaries. I’m sorry that this happened to you.
That’s a fair concern. I’m share there are ways to achieve a similar outcome of Graphene OS but of course most of these location sharing apps would compromise the very reason why most shouldn’t do it. Namely, the potential for someone to access your location from one of your peer’s insecure devices.
I am in a similar situation and it is a large challenge.
In our case it is immediate family and we have shared location for years, well before I began this privacy journey in the last few months.
FindMy has actually replaced communication in some ways I am sad to say. Instead of saying “I’m on my way” there is an expectation – in some cases – that we will just check FindMy.
I am working on changing this now that I know better. They all communicate with me via Signal now and they know that I’ve got this other phone that I carry a lot and they can’t track that. I know FindMy is terrible for privacy and I do feel shame even posting this to this board of all places. But, I wanted to share because I think it is a real barrier to some to switch to GOS (heck, it is hard for some to just stop sharing location, period). If it is not FindMy, it is Life360 for some of my Android friends who are parents. There is a comfort (and security), especially as a parent, to be able to know where your family is (think: severe weather incoming, or traffic accidents or worse). Yes, we do not consider the opposite side of that, which (as mentioned above) is the potential security risk of the phone or an AppleID itself getting compromised or accessed).
Thank you for bringing this issue up. It does inspire me to “work faster” with my family.
I agree it’s very creepy and invasive, I’m sorry you were in a situation like that you were definitely 100% in the right there. I feel like a measure of trust would be not having your snap map on rather than sharing your location at all times 
When I used to be on Snapchat, many of my friends and even people I didn’t know that well had this enabled. Kind of wild that you would want to share your location 24/7 with everyone on your contact list.
I am Gen Z and I do think it is useful to have find my sharing for specific situations especially if safety is a concern. Just not 24/7!
I don’t think it’s a Gen Z thing. The notion of 24/7 location sharing is creepy as hell. I once had a supervisor who asked me to share my location and I flat out said no.
Someone at work? What the heck! That is definitely in violation of some labor/privacy laws. 