I get the impression that many Gen Zers like to know where everyone is all the time. It’s totally normal for them to have each other’s GPS locations. Snapchat has a built-in map feature where you can watch your friends move around in real time, and there are other apps that offer this, too. I was blown away when I learned this was so commonly used and people just leave it on, so their social group just knows precisely where they are all the time.
I never really understood the “I have nothing to hide” mindset. I’ve always been for privacy. I self host everything I use, and when I don’t (e-mail) I PAY someone to do it for me. No Google services in my life, no apple, etc, etc.
However, more and more I’m wondering if what I’m doing is worth it. Really, the people who “have nothing to hide” seem fine, nothing bad has happened, and it seems far more likely my information was leaked from a hack (credit carma I’m looking at you). Credit cards know where I am, what I buy… Its endless. Plus now I have stress about my self hosted services going down.
So these guys who share their location and just live in blissful ignorance, are they on to something? I think life would be ‘easier’ for me on their side…
I never really understood the “I have nothing to hide” mindset.
This subject is best summed up by the Girl in Andrew Niccol’s vastly underrated movie Anon:
“It’s not that I have something to hide, I have nothing I want you to see”
This is the most intelligent, best articulated commentary on privacy I’ve ever seen and it fits in 17 words.
“It’s not that I have something to hide, I have nothing I want you to see”
This didn’t really resonate with me at all. Can you explain more?
When you says “resonate”, do you mean you don’t understand the sentence? Or do you mean you don’t see why you should care?
Re meaning, the sentence seems blindingly obvious to me. But maybe it isn’t… It means you don’t want privacy because you have something illegal to hide in your house, but because you don’t want to invite anybody in. I really don’t know how to explain it anymore clearly without repeating it verbatim.
If you don’t see why this is important or you think it doesn’t concern you, send me your address and I’ll come around tonite to take pictures of your furniture without your permission.
I’m a bit off-put by your tone, but no, I was being genuine. Saying it doesn’t resonate means whatever was said doesn’t seem as profound or meaningful as it does to the person who said it. So the phrase really means that you want to shut everyone out? I guess that makes sense, given the hostility in your response.
You read me wrong my friend. It was nothing more than an honest-to-goodness reply to you. No hostility. Be careful with written discussions, because you don’t see the face of whoever is writing and you tend to slap the state of mind you yourself are in when you read it. Imagine I’m writing this with a smile and that’s pretty much how I wrote it.
You don’t find the quote profound and that’s fair enough. To each his own opinion. Me, I think it’s a perfect description of the core issue of privacy: having the choice not to expose what I don’t want to expose for no other reason that I don’t want to. I don’t want to shut everybody out, I want to freedom to do it if I so choose and not have to justify myself or suffer consequences.
Maybe I’m easily impressed :)
I think you need to find a happy medium. I’ve accepted that I can’t control ALL the data I generate, so I instead aggressively block ads and any other marketing attempts towards me.
Yeah, it all boils down to your threat model. Not everyone has the time, resources, or know-how to self-host everything, so it’s about balancing convenience with privacy, which unfortunately is almost one or the other now.
This is kind of my point. I don’t feel there’s a happy middle right now and unless you go tinfoil hat information is going to get out.
My threat model is basically “do my best to be as private as possible”. But there is limits. I can spend $100 cash on gas or I can spend $100 on my credit card and get 2% back. Obviously I’m going to use my credit card. I still email people who use Gmail, People who have the facebook, instagram, X, etc on their phone has me as a contact, likely with my full name, email address, physical mailing address.
So why do I bother keeping my contacts in a selfhosted NextCloud? Why do I avoid the Google Maps app, or anything google when the wife uses all this stuff and I’m with her 90% of the time? I’m starting to think they have my information already anyway so why not welcome google into my life? I have to keep talking myself into the fact that self hosting is worth the extra work I’m causing myself.
Unfortunately it depends on the individual, so no one can really answer your question but yourself. For me, I draw the line when it personally becomes burdensome to maintain something. For example, I use Bitwarden to manage all my passwords, but I don’t trust myself enough to host and maintain a server and keep it online/secure, so I use their hosted service. I use google drive to store some miscellaneous stuff because of the free 15GB storage, but I don’t store any private files (personal photos, documents, etc.). I use ProtonDrive for more important stuff, and for very confidential files, I encrypt them first. I use google maps for navigation because of reliability and accuracy, but I use a separate google account for it. I know that doesn’t do much, but it keeps some level of separation for me personally. I still maintain a facebook account (although I barely use it) because of family, but I still use a facebook container on firefox and don’t use the mobile app. That plus all the privacy extensions.
The main thing is that it doesn’t have to be black or white. You don’t have to go full hermit, and at the same time you don’t need to fully embed yourself into the google ecosystem. Just do what you can and what you are comfortable with. As they say, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
For me it boils down to principles. You’re totally right and many companies I hate will have alot of my info due to others, but I’ll be damned if I cooperate with them.
They’ll learn the hard way. Hopefully the hard way is something serious to them but ultimately inconsequential like finding out a partner is cheating, and not like… being murdered.
Google Latitude was doing this in 2009 and I knew millennials who used it. Much more widespread now, though.
Gen Z here. I have Apple’s Find My location setup with my closest friends only (and my mom). I don’t have a reason to hide my locations to my friends, it helps with casually meeting up actually. “Oh XY is nearby, let’s meet and hang for a bit” And my mom has my location for emergencies and vice versa.
I disabled the snap map though as I have people on there that don’t need to know my location.
Article reads as propaganda. No way that zoomers are into this. This just sounds like justification for abusive parents to spy on their children. As a GenZ, I don’t recall having a single friend with this kind of arrangement with their parents, but then again I mostly hung around the more questionable crowd where you actually needed privacy. Would really hope we stop bickering among generations and actually fight for privacy together
For real, how are Millennials falling for the same headlines that were used to spread stupid assumptions about their own generation a decade ago, but this time about Gen Z?
Contrast to you, I hang out with a pretty straight laced crowd, and we also don’t “track each other on Snapchat” like the article or the top comment here is saying because that’s fucking weird.
What’s gonna be the Gen Z avocado toast headline, I wonder…
Just because a headline was published doesn’t mean people agree with it. You can literally publish whatever the fuck you want as long as you don’t cross a threshold that your core reader base stops trusting the publication. Fluff pieces like this are primetime space for just going off on bullshit with minimal repurcussions.
Beyond that clickbait/ragebait are absolutely a thing, and so is manufactured consent style propaganda.
Life360 just needs to have this article published in enough places that it seems like a ton of people are saying it. Gets the ball rolling for the appearance of people sharing this opinion when the reality is that they just got a dozen news sites to reword their press packet.
Sorry, I should have specified “in this comment section”. You’re absolutely right about everything you said regarding the online news circlejerk when it comes to “perceptions”.
There’s just a lot of anti-gen Z comments in this thread that make it seem like we don’t care about privacy issues or tech literacy, when a lot of us do, or we’re JUST learning about the importance of this stuff because the first of our generation are finally gaining independence and footing in society.
Article reads as propaganda
More like advertising. I’d put down a pretty big bet that Life360 sponsored this article and probably wrote a fair chunk of the copy, too.
Advertising is just propaganda where the politick is centered around consumerism.
However, even if you consider that “not a real politic” this article skips past the consumerism and straight into police state normalization.
While more on the parent side of the age gap of things now, I know at least five offspring personally who do this willingly. It is a nightmare to me, moreso the fact that it’s basically impossible or was the last time I looked to find ways to do it that are foss.
But the point is, probably more people do it than you expect. This place is a selection bias, most people genuinely give no rats ass about their privacy, and, to the shock of many, trust their parents and like the safety net.
There are certainly secure privacy focused approaches they retain the agency of both parties which could exist. It’s a very real niche.
This is arguably the first generation that grew up with zero privacy. Being watched is normal to them - and absolutely horrifying for this Gen-Xer.
Horrifying for this millennial too.
this gen x’er isn’t keen on the idea, either. before the days of cell phones, the street lights coming on was the cue it was time to go home–and we could go pretty much anywhere in our (small) town. and later as a teen when we lived close to a city, all mom wanted to know was whether i’d be home for supper. there was no worry because every ‘horrible’ thing to happen to a kid wasn’t published or broadcast for the world to see.
Aren’t Gen Z kids being raised by Gen X’ers? So wouldn’t it stand to reason that their parents are enabling and pushing this?
Yes. Strange isn’t it?
Gen-Xers are also guilty of letting corporate surveillance happen, thereby letting their children grow under the watchful eye of big data.
I never said my generation was virtuous. In fact, I blame people my age for not affording the next generation what they themselves got to enjoy. Just like we blamed our boomer parents for enjoying the good life after the war and leaving us the crumbs. Little did we know the ones after us would have it even harder.
Yeah but if you were a parent or if you are one. Would you do it? I could see doing it and just trying not to use it but man with some of the crazy kidnappings nowadays I would like to be able to find out where they are or at least have a last time and location for the police to work off of.
Yeah but if you were a parent or if you are one. Would you do it?
I am and I did not. Kids need to grow up without feeling they are being watched all the time. Or rather more accurately: kids need to grow up without being watched so they can sense when they are and take measures. Kids who grow up without any personal space don’t even realize they’re not free, and that’s a perfect recipe to create adults that accept tyrannical governments without question.
My kids grew up doing stuff they didn’t tell me about, and I didn’t know where they were half of the time. And yes, at times, I worried. But it was important to let them be.
the crazy kidnappings nowadays
I’ve heard people of all ages say that all my life. This is a well-know cognitive bias (i.e. “things were better in the past”) and it’s simply not true. I’m fairly certain our society is much safer today than it was in the past.
Yeah I should really have not used the term nowadays. Thing is that folks in the past could not do anything like this to mitigate it. They did not have the option. If you where in the position to need it you might find your decision to not utilize it to be endlessly horrible.
If you where in the position to need it you might find your decision to not utilize it to be endlessly horrible.
It was a choice. I chose to let them risk life and limb doing whatever stupid shit kids do behind their parents’ backs, risk being run over by a car or kidnapped as they walked to school. The risk was very small, and the benefits of letting them grow up with a normal, non-Orwellian childhood far outweighed them. Hell, my generation and those before me grew up like that and survived just fine.
But I agree: if something really bad had happened, I don’t know how I could have lived with myself. And this always weighed heavily on my mind whenever they were late to come home.
You’re trading your own feelings for your kid’s long-term well-being and learning. Many people would take the easy approach because your way is “scary”. Bravery is doing what needs to be done even if you’re afraid.
I’d call that right and proper. It’s what we adults are supposed to do. The number of times I’ve carried a crying infant to get them settled down while I could barely walk from excruciating back pain… It’s our job to take that on.
It’s funny, many of those parents who are tracking their kids would probably say “I sacrifice every day by working long hours so my kids have a warm, safe home” without realizing that giving them a long leash is also a sacrifice of parent’s (willingly take on worry) so kids grow up well.
Yeah. The other thing is though that if you have a cell phone you are allowing all sorts of companies and maybe governments track you all over the place, but there is an issue with family? Sure they don’t really care so maybe thats a thing but they don’t care till they do which is really wierd. It feels sorta adult to recognize the tracking that is happening and not seeing it as a big deal for the right reasons family wise. Take the opposite. Elderly parents being tracked by adult children. It would be interesting if parents started allowing their children to track them at some age.
My 21yo soon wants to build out a van and take a chunk of time (6 months?) in between jobs and drive around the States. We’re talking over a year from now, but as the idea has come up in discussion I told him that I’d like to have some form of tracker set up. He’s good with it.
Garmin sell these beacon devices, which can be used to either check in with relatives, or to summon help to their location.
They’re expensive, and intended more for people heading into remote areas, but might give you both some peace of mind, without tracking his every move.
GenZ here. I don’t think so.
My family tried to make me install the Spy360 crap last year.
My GPS spoofer made them regret that 🙂. A few check ins all around the world later (and other chaos) and they basically asked me to uninstall it. Lmao.
It pays to be more tech literate than your parents.
Back on topic, I don’t know very many people who have this thing who actually like it, so idk where the hell this article gets it’s sources…
Please tell me you’re educating your family in privacy issues. This tracking circumstance is an excellent opportunity to approach it with a education mindset instead of the stereotypical kids/parents conflict.
Check out www.theprivacydad.com it’s a great starting point for parents who don’t know tech enough to realize what’s going on.
They don’t care. We have ring doorbells and everything, no matter how many times I point to examples of these things being used for evil, they just brush it off.
They’re the “I have nothing to hide” and “I don’t care” type. And there’s no convincing them.
I’ll check out this link, though
EDIT: To clarify, I had resisted it and argued against it for a few months before it was actually installed. Using a Pinephone during that time stopped the stupidly invasive thing from working and I wasn’t using my S10e as my main phone for that reason 🤣
Install cameras in their bedroom that streams to YouTube or Twitch 24/7. See if they really have nothing to hide.
I’m 18 and fine with my parents knowing where I am so we can coordinate mealtimes and stuff. I really don’t care for having a third party spy on me 24/7 though. We just Signal each other “I’m at xyz location, be back soon” and that’s plenty enough.
OP this post is just outrage bait. Business insider? Really?
Business Insider? Hardly knew 'er.
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I say let them cook.
We’ve had twenty years of bullshit Gen X-written Millennials vs Boomers, it’s past time Gen Z gets some attention.
I know it’s just some rag bait nonsense, but I know as a fact most teens would never want their parents to constantly know where they are and monitor them constantly.
I am Gen Z and I’m not fine with that. I chose to go to college far from where I grew up so that I would be independent and free and do stuff on my own accord, like buying a motorcycle.
Used to share my location with my dad until he kept sending me a McDonald’s order everytime I was at McDonald’s. Then turned it off, lol. My mum still has it.
I’m a gen zer and I would absolutely freak out. I’d rather not going out rather than being spied 24/7 by my parents. Seriously, this is the best way to kill trust between children and their parents. Now even the social relationship between parents and children has to be extremely toxic and anxiogenic as a basic minimum requirement
See the thing is I’m fine with it because I know my parents wouldn’t have spied on me 24/7. If they were helicopter parents and DID check where I was every hour of the day I wouldn’t be fine with it.
My parents have always been VERY restrictive about anything but computers (just because they don’t understand them). However, I asked them if they would do it and they told me that’s damn outrageous
I mean their parents have probably been tracking them since they were kids so they just grew up thinking it’s normal, I also recently learned kids in school feel awkward if they aren’t walking to class while on their phone because then they feel like people will think they aren’t cool enough to have people to talk to at all times
This makes me sad. My brother and his wife always tracked my niece and nephew, and I feel like it did more harm than good. I remember agreeing to drive my nephew to buy fireworks, and on the way home I swung by Target to pick up my best friend a gift for his wedding, and my sister in law called my nephew and threatened to take his phone away because he wasn’t where he said he was going. Granted, I could have called, but it was a quick stop, and I didn’t know at the time they were watching him 24/7.
It is important to differentiate between able to know and contact tracking to enable controlling behavior. Knowing to help with communication and transportation arrangements is great, but nitpicking an extra stop on the way home to Target? Sheesh.
This is really what it comes down to, I think. When my newborn daughter gets old enough to have a phone and go out on your own, you bet I’m going to make sure I am able to know where she is at all times.
But I’m going to trust her to do the right thing and make good decisions, so I won’t be demanding she go only where I designate. Kids need to be able to do their own thing and learn through experience. The better lesson is to have them check in with a text every now and then, because it’s the respectful thing to do with family.
Phone-as-EPIRB is truly one of the biggest benefits.
I would suggest only having instantaneous location history or very short like 10min to avoid the temptation to pry.
“Wait, you mean you’re going to take away my phone so you’ll have no idea where I am, ever, you stupid fucking dink? Yeah, that’s fucking brilliant. Shut up and make me a pie.”
I recently saw a video clip by Josh Strife Hayes. He was talking about MMORPG culture, but it can be extended beyond that. It’s about the inability of people to be bored and impatience. Old people can manage with being bored. They can spend an hour not doing much of anything. But the further you go in time, the less patience people have. And that’s not because they are better or worse humans inherently, it’s because they grew up in an society where things increasingly got busy. So it also isn’t a binary old people/young people, but a progressing state of people getting blasted more and more with stuff.
This is to the point where there are YouTube videos where people cut away little bits of space between sentences just so there isn’t even a second of calm. Social media plattforms just bury you under content and new content suggestions. A lot of games don’t even want to risk downtime and just throw all kinds of random content at you for you to work through., quick travel so you won’t have a few minutes of calm walking somewhere. Just content back to back with more content.
And this ultimately leads to way more stuff for you than you can consume and an inreasing fear of missing out on something if you’re not constantly on the ball.
yeah I feel hobbies are really important and boredom is important for your hobbies, thats one reason I had uninstalled reddit in the past because I felt it was just too easy to open up reddit and not touch my hobbies in my free time. Also my younger cousin was once telling me about some kid and how he was an ipad kid, and I asked what that meant and he explained it about how it was a kid who the parents gave them an ipad when they were little to keep them calm. it was kind of funny the first time he told me but now that I notice it it feels pretty sad when I see it
Im fine with my parents knowing where i am the only problem is that i would also share my location with big daddy google and im not fine with that. And my parents are divorced so i wouldnt share it with my dad… Also it would drain my battery
Life360 is the subject and the surveyor for this article so take it with a grain of salt. They want this to be normal. However, it does not change the fact that clearly Gen Z is more open to this than previous generations at least to some degree.
As a parent, I do plan on using the services, but definitely not daily and I want my kids to have a say in the matter. What’s important is they feel safe.
friendly reminder that Life360 sells your precise location data https://themarkup.org/privacy/2021/12/06/the-popular-family-safety-app-life360-is-selling-precise-location-data-on-its-tens-of-millions-of-user
Oh trust me, not using them.
Speaking as GenZ (or Millennial, depends who you ask for the definition): fuuuuck that.
Speaking to the article specifically: I don’t trust a surveillance vendor to work honestly when surveying the acceptance of their surveillance tool. The article also fails to mention (if it does, it’s so brief I missed it) that the pressure some parents put on their kids to install and allow these kinds of spyware is immense. The kid having it on does not equate to the kid choosing to have it on.
I’m ok with my parents knowing where I am at all times(frankly, they don’t care much about that which is good)
I’m not ok with meta knowing about it
