It’s lunchtime at any Australian high school, and the hum of a thousand notifications fills the air.
Beneath the clatter of opened lunchboxes and playground antics, the talk turns to mobile phones and live location sharing apps – ‘she’s still at home,’ or ‘he left school early—look’, are common threads of conversation.
The student’s aren’t guessing, they’re watching the locations of their fellow classmates.
Thanks to tools like Snapchat’s Snap Map and Life360, Australian teenagers are navigating their adolescence under a glow of digital surveillance.
At any given moment, a friend or parent can open an app and pinpoint exactly where a young person is located,
To some, it feels like safety. To others, it’s surveillance, disguised as care.
For many, it’s just a normal part of being a teenager in 2025.
Beneath the surface of what has become a socially accepted form of real-time location sharing lies a web of growing psychological complexities.
With every ping of a location update comes a series of unspoken expectations: Why were you there? Why didn’t you reply if I saw you were home? Why were you out so late?
At a time of life that is supposed to be about gaining freedom and trust, many teens are discovering they are more closely monitored than ever before—and not just by their parents.
For Wollongong student, Imogen Miller, 14, location tracking is not something she has had forced on her—it is something she has chosen.
“I asked my mum to get Life360,” she said.
Imogen fiddles with her phone as she speaks.
“It wasn’t something she made me do.
“I just liked the idea that if something happened while I was walking home or out with friends, she’d know where I was.”
In a digital landscape where many teens push back against parental oversight, Imogen’s experience is the opposite. Her relationship with location sharing is about reassurance than restriction.
But she draws a line between family tracking and peer visibility.
“I use Snap Maps too, but only for my close friends,” she said.
“Not everyone needs to know where I am. That would just feel weird.
“It’s uncomfortable knowing that people you’re not super close with could just see where you are at any time.
“If it were open to everyone, I’d feel like I had to justify everything I did.”
Imogen’s boundaries reflect a growing digital awareness among teens—an understanding of how exposure can quickly become invasive.
While she appreciates the security of sharing her location with trusted people, she’s wary of turning her life into an open map.
She’s not alone.
About 48 per cent of global Snapchat users, aged between 14 and 24, claim that the reach into life is vast, making choices around visibility and privacy more important than ever for young users.
“Having Snap Maps on for everyone is not something I’d consider,” Imogen said.
“Only my close friends need that, in case something happens, they’ll know where I am.
“But otherwise… no thanks.”
Her instincts are echoed in data from a survey conducted with over 50 students from a Wollongong high school.
Every student said they had live tracking turned on in some form, whether through Snap Maps, Find My iPhone, or Life360.
All of them shared their location with at least one person – 24/7.
It’s a statistic that speaks volumes.
Live tracking isn’t just common — it’s universal.
But what teens like Imogen are showing is that universal doesn’t mean unlimited.
Live location tracking, once the domain of espionage thrillers and sci-fi, is now standard in teen life.
Location sharing apps allow for real-time monitoring of a person’s movements.
On paper, they offer protection, but in practice, the reality is more complicated.
esafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant said in a May press release, that young people have become so accustomed to a certain level of online tracking and monitoring, and it’s changing how young people develop autonomy.
“For some, the expectation of tracking can contribute to future tech-based coercive control: a pattern of behaviour used to manipulate someone with devastating effects on that person’s perception, sense of self-worth, and sense of safety,” Ms Grant said.
According to Ms Grant, open conversations about why tracking apps are being installed on a child’s phone and when that location data will be used are often overlooked by parents.
A survey by Life360 found that Gen Z is 70 per cent more likely than other age groups to share their location with friends, and 94 per cent of Gen Z respondents believe that their lives benefit from location sharing.
“If you decide to download a location-sharing app onto your child’s device, have a conversation about why and when their location will be shared with you, and how the app work,” Ms Grant said.
“We want to build children’s understanding of where and how information about them exists online and who else can access it.”
The impacts aren’t always dramatic. For some, it’s a subtle pressure.
KIDS ONLINE AND PARENTS’ VIEWS by Finlay Smart
For many parents, location tracking is a moral and emotional tightrope, balancing the desire to give their children independence with the instinct to keep them safe.
For single father of two, Spencer Fuller the issue is less about control and more about peace of mind.
“I’m a shift worker. I’m not always at home,” Mr Fuller said.
“It’s reassuring to know where my kids are when I can’t physically be there to protect them.”
Mr Fuller insists it’s not about restricting his children’s movements. Rather, it’s about maintaining open communication and creating opportunities to discuss safety.
“I’m not trying to stop them from doing things,” Mr Fuller said.
“But tracking gives me a way to check in and ask, ‘is this safe?’
“It’s important to keep trust at the core of it.
“Otherwise, these apps lose their purpose: to help keep people safe.”
More than two million Australians now use the location-sharing app Life360, a 36 per cent increase on the previous year.
Globally, the trend reflects similar patterns. An A U.S. study found that 80 per cent of parents track their children’s locations, yet 36 per cent do so without their child’s knowledge.
This study has raised questions about consent and privacy.
Live location tracking has become a quiet constant in the lives of Australian teens.
For some, it’s a safety net. For others, it is a silent source of pressure.
As both parents and young people weigh its benefits against its emotional costs, one truth becomes clear: this technology isn’t going anywhere.
Feature Image Source: Yahoo News Australia
