Have you ever lost your mind over not knowing where your partner is? Have you ever freaked out as “location not found” lit up your screen? Chances are, you have. Recent surveys carried out by CORE Research have revealed some concerning facts about the Irish youth and their approach to relationships. According to the results, 71 per cent of students believe that it is expected for one’s partner to reply immediately, while 64 per cent view sharing one’s live location as commonplace. Another 58 per cent stated that there is nothing strange about regular checks of your partner’s online interactions.
The same report also revealed that 55 per cent of respondents struggle with saying “no” to their partners, while another 42 per cent feel disrespected during disagreements. It is difficult not to recognise the correlation between the results of the surveys, pointing towards a visible problem with young people needing to have constant access to each other. With apps such as Find My and Life360 continuously rising in popularity (Life360 saw a 22 per cent increase in monthly users since 2025), it appears that we have lost the ability to simply trust each other.
There is nothing inherently evil about location tracking apps. After all, they were created with the idea of security in mind — for parents, friends, and lovers, who can go to sleep in peace seeing the tiny dot moving in the right direction. The very first location tracker premiered in 1999 with the release of the Benefon Esc! that included a “Friend Find” mode which allowed users to trace their contacts’ movements and set an “Emergency Key” that could send others their coordinates via SMS. It was groundbreaking, yet incredibly simple. And maybe it’s the simplicity that held the key.
Nowadays, with location tracking apps consisting of a myriad of functions, modes and methods to conceal your stalker tendencies, there is truly no way to remain disconnected. Unless you wish to alienate the people that simply care about your wellbeing, you need to surrender. But when does location sharing between adults stop being concerned and start appearing obsessive? As the surveys have shown, most young people expect to see their partner’s exact location the second they open their phone. What this is doing, however, is the antithesis of strengthening their connection — in fact, it’s causing us nothing but harm. By relying on apps to either confirm or deny our suspicions, we’re not only breaking others’ trust but also being cowardly about it. Our relationships are worth more than to be constantly tested by an iPhone app. Even habitual location checking is entirely redundant for college students who, by nature, see each other almost every day. If the only thing you can say to someone when they tell you about their day is “I know,” the problem goes beyond plain trust. It is devaluing our relationships to have constant access to each other — if you can get a preview of your friends’ night every time they go out, you might as well join them. And if this is how you find out you weren’t invited — well, maybe ignorance is bliss.
What is currently occurring seems to be a sign of a total dependence on verification. Fact-checking everything you hear has slowly morphed into fact-checking what your own loved ones tell you. What does it reveal about our interpersonal relationships that we cannot seem to function without constant visual confirmation? In the age when privacy is an essentially foreign concept, why are we willingly giving up even more of it?
The issue of trust goes well beyond the fear of being cheated on. Location tracking may increase your security, but it can also decrease it by a mile. It is not surprising that almost the same percentage of people who find it normal to have immediate access to their partners’ online presence struggle with the feeling of security and stability in their relationships. There is nothing normal about demanding the right to your partner’s whereabouts at all times, and it’s even less normal to attempt to catch them red-handed when they take a different route to campus. Location tracking is not abuse in itself – far from it – yet the way it’s used in young people’s relationships certainly treads that line. Controlling behaviours become masked as protectiveness which in turn normalises a severe lack of autonomy in relationships. Yes, there are worse offences in this world than enquiring about the details of someone’s day, but when said inquiry is fuelled by demanding justification for any activity, there is a clear problem at hand.
This is not to say that all cases of location tracking are as severe — most of us probably don’t indulge in anything beyond occasional check ups on friends. Care is, after all, a defining aspect of all relationships. Still, the very fact that what we resort to is surveilling their whereabouts rather than simply calling speaks volumes to our unwillingness to inconvenience ourselves and actually put some effort into our friendships. The entire issue is quite paradoxical — we complain about privacy being a lost art, yet denounce other people’s right to it. Our addiction to convenience and comfort is infiltrating our relationships, and live tracking is just another example of it. Privacy is dead, and our connections are following suit. So, do yourself a favour and click “Do Not Share.”
