Every evening, I tuck myself into bed and check on my Sims.
My sister is at home, likely curled up with her dog.
My friend who lives down the street is down the street.
My boyfriend is right next to me, the app confirms.
Im not alone in this.
Twenty-four hours after their breakup, the ex already appeared to be spending the night at an unfamiliar location.
It is information I should not have had access to, Hannah says in retrospect.
Its so easy, people may not even know when and where theyre doing it.
It was definitely by accident, she told me.
He would message me, Just leaving my house for work.
What are you doing tonight?
I would see in his location services that he was somewhere completely different.
She used this information to confront him, and he admitted to sleeping with someone else.
For those with an iPhone, one location-sharing feature, Find My Friends, dominates.
Apple launched its standalone app in 2011, and by 2015, it came automatically with new iPhones.
Basil, it warned her, had been left behind.
Jeez, Apple, way to make me cry this morning, she texted our group chat.
(Basil is recovering happily at home.)
This technology has changed everything.
I was getting laid.
To share locations in a relationship is to put your cards on the table.
I was at a wedding and got three missed calls from Dad in quick succession.
He’s frantic, asking if I know why Mom is in Arizona.
(One of his paramours had told her.)
But the surveiler isnt always in the right.
The act of checking up on friends locations treads a fine line between caring and controlling.
Instead, its technology preying on human beings worst impulses.
She knew they didnt like the boy she was dating and she wanted to avoid interrogation.
Instead, she got an attack.
They proceeded to track me and bombard me with texts calling me a liar, she adds.
I did not owe them any explanations of my whereabouts.
Israa Nasir, anauthorand psychotherapist whospeaks frequentlyabout modern relationships, is against the practice in romantic partnerships.
People owe each other transparency through communication, she says, not surveillance.
If youneedto location-share to feel at peace, thats a bad sign.
Rather, constant awareness of my friends and familys locations over the years has revealed their banality.
Location-sharing promises constant visibility.
Most times, however, theres just simply nothing to see.
*Pseudonyms were given where requested for purposes of anonymity.
