Why Gen Z is ‘addicted’ to sharing their location online

Hannah Alper discusses her recent article "Why Gen Z is Addicted to Location Sharing."

As of 2022, 250 million people shared their location on Snap Maps. While the idea of phones acting like tracking devices may terrify some people, Snap Maps, Instagram locations and Find My Phone have become a part of social fabric for young people. Hannah Alper joined CTV Your Morning Edmonton’s Kent Morrison to discuss her recent article “Why Gen Z is Addicted to Location Sharing.”

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kent Morrison: How do you use Snap Maps day-to-day with your friends?

Hannah Alper: I use it on Apple’s “Find My Snapchat” Snap Maps and Instagram’s recent location sharing feature. Most people in my generation do share their location constantly with people. What was originally supposed to be a tool for digital safety and convenience to track bus progress or see where your friends are or to hang out, has turned into something where we’re constantly keeping tabs on other people. I think my generation has become so used to being watched initially by our parents, that it has become normal, almost comforting for our friends to know where we are all the time.

Kent: Why do you think you find comfort in being findable?

Hannah: I think that my generation is really used to being seen and that the difference of being watched kind of subtly seeped in. I’ve had a public Instagram since I was 12 years old and we always post online to show off status and where we are. I think we also live in a time where, for safety reasons, we know every good and bad thing that’s happening in the world thanks to social media. Knowing where our friends are is very comforting especially in the era of one night stands, hook up culture and going in Uber rides that are very unfamiliar. It’s also good for convenience. Instead of those scenes and friends where you’re waiting for someone to get to the coffee shop, you can just check their location. I think that was the original purpose, but now it’s become something that’s much more akin to surveillance.

Kent: You also write about having intimacy because of this. Can you explain that further?

Hannah: I think that it’s one of those invasion disguised as intimacy things. When me and my friends are at a bar and one of my friends is chronically late, we’ll check her location, see she’s still at home and call her to tell her to get moving. There’s so many situations like that that I think it really does bring you closer together.

You know that you’re close friends, whether it’s in a friendship or relationship. When the big question pops up: “Share your location with me.” You can always see when you guys are hanging out and it does bring up that feeling of, “Wow, this person trusts me enough to know where I am.” But then at the same time 15 people had my location and I can see hundreds of well-dressed avatars on Snap Maps. So I think that it has become something that’s less than all these people that you’re close with and more something that’s a bit more invasion disguised as intimacy.

Kent: Are you not afraid of people knowing where you are at all times? What do you say about the dangers on that side?

Hannah: I would say that my parents’ generation and people that are a little bit more skeptical of it, were those that could go off at all hours of the day and night and their parents and their friends did not know where they were. Social media and this increasing reliance on technology is already something that’s really unknown to them. But for us, it’s something that’s really normal. Being able to post where we are, who we’re with, is something that’s comforting to us and shows off status.

This is all something that’s become a default mode, but now it’s become an expectation to the point that it’s almost weird if you don’t share your location if all your friends are. But then there’s also the fear of seeing all your friends hanging out without you or seeing that you’re at a private location. It’s also the dawn of the days where you can flake with a vague excuse because you want to conserve your social battery or type “on the way” while you’re still in bed. It really has eroded any sense of privacy and what that actually means.

Kent: Are you not worried about strangers knowing where you are or the fact that you can never really be alone?

Hannah: Definitely. On the Find My app, I only share it with my close friends and most people in my generation only do. But on Snapchat’s Snap Maps, you can share it with all your friends which could be even more casual than Facebook friend status. It can be people that you don’t even know. I know where people are right now that I’ve never met before on Snap Maps. My parents have educated me enough on the concept of digital safety that I’ve never shared it with someone that I don’t know, but it can always fall into the wrong hands. If you have a falling out with a friend or you just don’t talk to someone very much anymore, it’s very easy to forget that your location is still on and there’s the concept that it’s even harder to turn it off.