Where are you now? And why it matters that we ask

The subtle human politics of technology and intimacy

In the early 2000s, comedian Dom Joly stood on a train with a cartoonishly oversized mobile phone shouting “HELLO? I’M ON THE TRAIN!” at baffled commuters. It was a satire of a behaviour that felt new and socially disorienting: the idea that private communication about where we were at any given moment could suddenly spill into public space. Two decades later, the situation has been upended - we no longer shout our presence into the world; instead, we broadcast it silently.

In 2025, 65% of US Gen Z routinely share their location with others, and almost half of all US adults say they keep at least one person updated on their movements. What once felt intrusive is now automatic for many. At one level, this seems sensible – why would we not let others in our lives know where we are?

But as ever, when it comes to people and their tools, it is not that simple. In fact, it is starting to become clear that location sharing has implications for how intimacy is constructed: could it be that this simple shift is in fact undermining the everyday actions on which our intimacy is based?

Intimacy through shared moments and feelings

It is well known that intimacy in our relationships is not only predicted by big set pieces (such as a weekly ‘date night’) but by what psychologist Zizi Papacharissi calls ‘affective traces’, small, voluntary disclosures that express care and attention. These operate as ‘relational maintenance,’ keeping a sense of mutual involvement: we are not simply issuing information but expressing our care and attention for the other person.

Then what if location-sharing renders this no longer needed, and instead of intentional communication, family and friends receive automated visibility? Communication theory would set out the distinction between message content (functional information of our whereabouts) and its relational function, the interpersonal signal carried by the act of disclosure. On this basis, automated location updates weaken the second layer; we receive knowledge but stripped of the interpersonal element.

The risk is that we erode what anthropologist Kathleen Stewart calls the “ordinary affects”: the small gestures and micro-encounters of everyday life. Stewart’s work shows how the pleasures of the ordinary, such as a morning walk or a familiar shopkeeper’s greeting, form the ‘affective fabric’ through which people feel connected to their worlds. It is easy to dismiss these mundane interactions as trivial, but Stewart makes the point that they are the subtle materials from which our collective identities and relational belonging are made.

These small disclosures are part of the everyday atmosphere that can keep relationships alive. They are gestures of care and attunement - the low-level background work that holds intimacy together.

Visibility becomes expected

Location-sharing is no longer a marginal or highly personal practice but a familiar mode of social belonging. Again, the same study found two-thirds of Gen Z share their location, along with 45% of millennials and 42% of Gen X. And among those who share, most make their whereabouts known to multiple people: 61% share with several individuals rather than just one. In fact, this behaviour, which might once have signalled closeness (if perhaps we just share with one person), now seems to signal ordinariness – it is the social norm.

This creates new complexities, given people such as Alice Marwick and danah boyd have long found that young people negotiate their privacy more by managing boundaries (who gets in) rather than guarding secrets (what you say). But location sharing norms are putting this under pressure, as now a state of constant visibility demonstrates trustworthiness and transparency. On this basis, declining to share (to protect privacy) can start to feel difficult, even in otherwise healthy relationships.

‘Privacy resignation’ also reinforces these norms. Many of us believe we have already handed over significant personal data to governments and technology firms, which leads us to consider additional sharing, particularly with friends or partners, as relatively inconsequential. If institutions already know, the logic goes, then sharing with a family member or friend seems trivial, thereby normalising interpersonal surveillance.

Internalised visibility

And the act of location sharing, increasingly the norm, not only seems to erode our ‘affective fabric’ but also creates a sense of being observed by others. Philosopher Michel Foucault famously articulated this idea through the Panopticon: a prison design in which prisoners internalise discipline not because they are constantly observed, but because they can never know when they might be observed. Fast forward a century, and research on parental tracking suggests that young people frequently modify their behaviour pre-emptively, not because a parent is tracking them, but because they could be.

danah boyd calls this the erosion of “unobserved space”: the disappearing places in which young people can linger and experiment without anticipating an external gaze. This space has historically played a key developmental role in establishing autonomy and internal decision-making. But studies now suggest that early normalisation of being trackable encourages children to interpret their behaviour through the imagined perspective of others.

And as adults, we can also experience similar dynamics. Even when location-sharing is consensual, the awareness of potential visibility generates a kind of background accountability. So now if we decide to take a detour and delay our route home, then this might be something to be explained if called upon later. In other words, our internal world and the choices we then make become ‘digitally disciplined’.

Linked to this, perhaps there is also something important in the uncertainty of not knowing quite where someone is. In her book ‘Mating in Captivity’, Esther Perel suggests that relationships have always relied on elements of not-knowing, what happens in the gaps in someone’s day, what is going on in their heads in the pauses before they reply. This is where our curiosity kicks in, we think about each other and speculate, drawing on the small acts of imagination.

Philosophers of relational life, such as Perel, have long argued that these intervals are not blackages but openings where curiosity, generosity, and meaning are formed. Think of waiting to hear whether someone has finished a meeting or arrived safely: in that small pause, you wonder how they are, you stay alert to their mood, you think about what they might need from you. But when every movement becomes instantly visible, those spaces begin to shrink.

Intimacy through shared meaning-making

You get the impression that Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin would have taken a hard line on the use of location sharing. For him, everything we say is an “answerable act,” a moment in which a person steps forward and allows another to see how they interpret their situation. And as we set out earlier, this is never a neutral transmission of facts; it is shaped by the speaker’s sense of what matters and how they wish to be understood in that instant. So even a simple message such as “I’m just leaving now” reflects how the speaker understands the moment and how they want that moment to be understood by someone else. Taking that simple phrase, it might mean:

a small apology from someone who’s running late

said after a long day, it can signal tiredness and a hope for a nice reception at home.

a cue for timing and care, sent to a partner cooking dinner, not just movement

from a teenager, it might show responsibility or avoid worrying a parent

said to a friend, it can express enthusiasm

and so on

And crucially, the way the listener receives and interprets a small disclosure also acknowledges them as a partner in meaning-making. “Just leaving now” might be heard as stress and met with making things comfortable for them that evening. The response itself might be sympathetic, such as “Take your time, no rush,” or on the other hand it might push back on the implied meaning: “Just leaving now? I thought you said the meeting finished earlier.” In each case, the utterance becomes something that can be embraced or contested, but not simply absorbed.

Whichever route, the exchange on location shows that the utterance has been taken up and worked on within the shared rhythm of the relationship. To speak, in Bakhtin’s view, is to enter a small ethical relation, to offer something and allow it to be met, questioned, or affirmed by another.

Location-sharing bypasses all of this, it delivers the fact without the framing. What disappears is not just the information update but the small moment in which a person ‘narrates themselves into view’ and the equally small moment in which that narration can be received, interpreted, and recognised.

Final thoughts

Location-sharing clearly has value. For many people, it provides reassurance, protection, and a sense of being held in mind. It answers a genuine human need for safety. But safety and intimacy are not, of course, the same thing.

What location-sharing ultimately reveals is not simply where someone is, but what can be lost when technology speaks instead of us. Intimacy is not built from perfect knowledge of another’s movements, but from the small stories we choose to tell about ourselves, turning information into relationship.

Safety may well require us to know where someone is. But intimacy still depends on knowing how they are, and that part cannot be automated.