Apps like Life360 can give kids and parents a sense of security, but they also raise questions about privacy and children’s autonomy. And on TikTok, teenagers are discussing and debating them. Videos with the hashtag #Life360 have been viewed there over 13 million times. In some of the most popular clips, teens share with each other strategies for circumventing the app, usually by turning off various phone settings. Other videos are less practical and serve more as a form of venting. In one recording with more than 30,000 likes, a photo of Life360’s founder and CEO Chris Hulls appears onscreen, while a rap song with the lyrics “Snitch, snitch, the snitch, the snitch, snitch” plays.

“I think it’s completely unfair and detrimental to teenagers if their parents use this app on them regularly,” said a 16-year-old boy from Texas who, like all the young people in this story, was contacted via social media and requested anonymity to talk freely about his family. “I spend most of my time texting my parents about what’s going on rather than spending time with my friends.”

Other teens are more understanding of their parents’ use of the app but think Life360 is too invasive. “If I am going a little over the speed limit on the freeway just to keep up with traffic, my parents freak out,” said a 16-year-old girl from California. “I understand where my parents are coming from, but I believe that the app has too many features that make it over the top.”

Life360 COO David Rice argues that these teenagers represent a vocal minority. “Teens who take issue with Life360 are often the loudest, but in reality a vast majority of teens are OK with location sharing,” he said in an email. The practice has “become the new norm for today’s digitally native families.”

It’s true that not every young person resents constantly sharing their whereabouts with their parents. “Using the app makes me feel kind of safe, honestly,” said a 21-year-old woman from California. “And, like, me and my younger brother don’t lie to our parents, so if they call after checking the app, we always say where we are, but it’s just there for them to have it just in case we don’t call and check in.”

There isn’t one correct way to parent, and tools like Life360 can make the often difficult process of raising a teenager easier. Adults today are often already more active in managing their kids’ lives, even while researchers have found that adolescents are having less sex, attending fewer parties, and abstaining in greater numbers from drugs and alcohol than previous generations.

But location-sharing apps also provoke thorny questions about how much privacy children and young adults are entitled to. “Our legal system gives strong deference to parental freedoms and parental rights,” said Stacy Steinberg, a professor at the University of Florida Law School and the director of its Center on Children and Families. (There are at least some regulations to protect children’s personal information from corporations, like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, and Life360’s policies state that it doesn’t use data from kids under 13 for marketing or advertising.)

Even if it’s totally legal for a parent to track their children, some experts have urged parents to consider how they go about it and the impact it could have on their teen’s trust or their ability to practice independence. “[My parents] sometimes don’t let me do the simplest things, such as stopping to get ice cream on my own or stopping by friends’ houses to stay hello,” said an 18-year-old girl from Florida. “Before Life360, I’d do harmless things like these without letting my parents know, but now they have access to my every step.” Life360 can also add unnecessary stress; one teen asked WIRED to end an interview early because just talking about the app caused them anxiety.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.wired.com