I watched in horror from my dorm room as three gray circles, labeled with the initials of my closest friends, slowly converged at the campus dining hall on the map displayed on my phone. It was my sophomore year of college, and I still remember tearfully calling my mom, whimpering that it was the second time this week my roommate had gone to the dining hall to eat dinner with my two other best friends without me.

If I’d gone to college a decade earlier, this never would have happened. Or at least not like this. FOMO and friendship betrayals have been a thing probably since humans invented the concept of hanging out — just ask Julius Caesar how he felt about Brutus’ secret assassination plot meetings with all the other Roman senators.

But I saw my friends getting dinner without me, which is admittedly much better than plotting my murder but still hurt, in real time.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

I don’t remember exactly when I started doing it, but at some point, I began sharing my location with all my friends on Apple’s Find My app. Today, 25 people can see where I am, or at least where my iPhone is, 24/7. Some of those people make sense — my roommate, my brother, my best friends from college — but others less so, like a co-worker from the summer of 2023 and a high school teammate I speak with about once a year.

Whether a useful tool or a loathsome invasion of privacy, my generation has opened the Pandora’s box of location sharing. Location sharing services like Find My, Snap Map and Life360 are hugely popular among members of Generation Z, who use the apps to strengthen social bonds and make everything from meeting up at a concert to planning study dates easier.

The Find My icon is displayed on a phone screen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland, on Jan. 29, 2023.

To people not of the Gen Z cohort, live location sharing may seem unthinkable. My editor, parents and co-workers have all looked at me bug-eyed as I try to explain that no, I don’t think it’s weird to have an app to follow around my friends like they’re sea turtles or grizzly bears tagged with tracking collars. At least it’s not just me.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

“I don’t find people having my location to be invasive at all. I think that’s just a natural part of life,” said Rhiannon Cogley, 19. “I would tell people where I am anyways. That just saves a text, you know?”

Cogley, a Cal Poly Humboldt student originally from Oakland, guessed she shared her location with about eight people when I asked her. But when she opened her Find My app to check, the actual total was 15 — 11 friends, two aunts and her parents.

While she had the app open, she spotted a friend on vacation in Italy. “She’s at a pizza place right outside the Basilica of Saint Mark,” Cogley said.

Location sharing starts as a slow creep. First, you share with your roommate because sometimes it’s nice to know if you’re going to have some alone time in your cramped double dorm room after class. Then, you go out to some bars with a group of friends in a pack, and everyone shares their location in the name of safety. If someone leaves with a man they just met, you want to know where they’re going.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

History | Why a wealthy banker blasted a huge hole in a Bay Area cliff
Local | There's a mansion hidden directly under the Bay Bridge
Culture |

© SFGate