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Comment on ‘If I switch it off, my girlfriend might think I’m cheating’: inside the rise of couples location sharing

How old are you guys, if you don’t mind me asking? It seems that generally younger people don’t see this as an innate violation of privacy, where older people feel quite surveilled and even like they’re being viewed as untrustworthy for someone to ask this of them.

I’ve never cheated on my spouse (not even close), I’ve never felt any inclination to lie about my whereabouts. I can see the safety aspect of this, logically. I would feel offended if my spouse asked me to be a dot on his phone, as if he was asking to own me. We share a home, a child, a bank account, a car, but we don’t share location. I don’t even keep my location activated for my own use unless I’m actively navigating somewhere new.

We’ve got plenty of “normal” problems, but none of them lead me to want his location. I simply trust him enough. It feels to me like if you need your partners location on tap, you must first have other problems

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Dozzi92@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m 37 and share my location with my wife. We have kids. It is an efficiency thing that we use to help decide when to begin dinner, who’s grabbing the kids, etc. The whole idea of trust issues is just very high school to me.

I have my mom’s location. She lives alone. She works in the city. Sometimes I like to just be sure she got home but don’t need to bother her about it, or I’m at work late and can’t be making phone calls.

Folks with privacy concerns, I guess I accept that. But if you think the only thing stopping the government from snatching you is your location services being off, you’re sorely mistaken.

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beastlykings@sh.itjust.works ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’d rather not disclose my age on this account, but, let’s just say we’re not newly married.

I will admit my statement about location sharing only being a problem if you’ve already got problems was a bit too binary. The issue is more nuanced.

I see you’re focusing on the cheating aspect, which to your credit is what the OP is all about. But from our perspective, that’s not even an issue or a use case for the technology. We have full trust in each other. The technology is simply useful for other reasons.

Did she make it to work in the snowstorm or rainstorm?

Huh she’s usually home by now, is she unconscious in a ditch or just stopped at the store?

Dinner is almost ready, I just need to put this in the oven so it’s ready to come out the second she walks in the door, let me make sure she’s actually on her way home. Oh, she must have gotten held up at work, I’ll wait a few more minutes.

Stuff like that. Yeah there’s other ways of solving those problems, and that’s fine too, we just prefer the convenience.

We don’t share locations because we don’t trust each other, we share because it’s convenient. I guess you could say we trust each other not to go crazy with it 🤷‍♂️

We have married friends who won’t share with each other, and that’s fine too.

I’ll retract my earlier statement. Location sharing is a sensitive subject, with lots of facets. Sharing or not is a personal choice. And while there can be practical benefits, I think most people would agree that using it for cheating prevention is… Unhealthy.

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TeddE@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’m 40 and have done this with partners.

But also, they and I have an open relationship. If they found me in the bed of another, the reaction would an excited inquiry of if I had fun.

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pupbiru@aussie.zone ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

I simply trust him enough

but what people are saying is it has little to do with trust: it’s a utility… in fact, the trust is flipped: i trust my partner to have my location, and only look at it for things like checking how far away i am for my benefit

It feels to me like if you need your partners location on tap, you must first have other problems

you’re allowed to feel that, but that’s absolutely not true. given the safety and utility aspect, it FEELS to me like if you don’t trust your partner to have and not abuse your location data then you must have other problems

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- _g_be@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Seems like the underlying tension is wether being surveiled at all is inherently a violation.
  
  If it is, then your partner doing it might feel like a lack of trust.
  
  for my benefit Its not a benefit if you don’t like being tracked
  
  If not, then it’s just a practical tool, might as well use the data if it’s getting captured anyway.
  
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  - pupbiru@aussie.zone ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    surveiled
    
    surveillance implies active, constant, and surreptitious… i would not classify mutual location sharing as any of that: it’s passive, occasional, and well-known and consented to by both parties
    
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    supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    NO surveillance is truly constant, that would defeat the point of surveillance which is to create the ever present possibility that someone is watching so you begin to subconciously assume you are always being watched.
    
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    _g_be@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    If you’re doing this through Google or whichever company is facilitating, then I would say that’s the party doing all of the things listed
    
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echodot@feddit.uk ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I don’t mind my girlfriend knowing where I am because I’m not cheating on her. The only time it gets a bit weird is if me and my mates are doing something a bit stupid, one time we went to one of those trampoline centres at like 10:00 p.m. because they were having an adult night. We pushed to get massively over excited about trampolines and I ended up getting questioned about it in the morning. But hey she definitely knew I wasn’t cheating on her there she just thought I was being weird

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- supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  We pushed to get massively over excited about trampolines and I ended up getting questioned about it in the morning. But hey she definitely knew I wasn’t cheating on her there she just thought I was being weird
  
  This is precisely the insidious part. This is how an innocent self censorship of your privacy begins, with a harmless anecdote like this.
  
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