Students Say “No” to Life Saving Apps

You’ve mentally and physically prepared to move miles away from home to embrace the college experience – while becoming independent and finally receiving breathing space from your parents. Then arrives that awkward moment when your parents insist that you download a locator app, or better yet, they surprise you with the new mapping service they’ve added to the family plan for safety purposes. Here’s to the future of digital parenting.

Location applications and tracking services allow mobile GPS locations to be shared among others. In other words, mom and dad will see when you’re out-and-about at 2am. Expect a phone call or a search and rescue team – depending on your parent’s imagination level.  However, there have been incidents such as hiking disasters where tracking applications proved to be life saving.

Family Locator App, PC World

With the buzz over locator apps and services like AT&T’s Family Map and Apple’s Find My Friends, one can’t help but wonder, “Where does safety end and the violation of privacy begin?” While college students aren’t famous for always making perfect choices, shouldn’t students have the opportunity and privacy to decide?

Mallory Hatten, a senior at the University of Southern Mississippi, opts for freedom. “It’s an invasion of privacy; if I wanted them to know where I was, then I would tell them.” Keeping in mind that an average set of parents aren’t as equipped as Liam Neeson’s character portrayal in Taken, sacrificing privacy for safety may be worth it. According to The National Institute of Justice, over tens of thousands of people in the United States vanish every year. The number of missing persons around the world is steadily increasing.

Nikki Shelton, a Public Relations student at Southern Miss, says while she doesn’t use locator apps herself, she knows a father daughter duo that does. “She uses it so her dad can keep track of her,” she said. “He makes her have it for safety.”

I’ve witnessed parents refer to them as “Life saving Apps” and students call them “Stalker Apps.” Regardless of their title, students say “no” to tracking and “yes” to independence and privacy. “Once you’re away at college, you get a certain amount of independence and responsibility for yourself that comes with it,” Bostonian, Caitlin Mann adds. “I would like to share that information with them myself, not through technology.”