Location sharing features have become increasingly popular as social media use has grown, with 65% of Gen Z sharing their location across various platforms. Whether you share with friends, family, or even strangers, many apps offer variations of this component.
Snapchat is one of the most widely used apps that offers location sharing. Upon signing up, you are presented with the option to share your location on Snap Map. Snap Map allows friends on the app to see your location when Snapchat is in use. You can also share your live location—where a user’s location is updated even when the app is closed—choose specific people you want to share with, or refrain from sharing completely. This feature is extremely popular, with over 400 million users enabling this technology on their phones.
Some other popular apps with similar features are: Instagram, Find My, and Life360. Instagram currently has over 170 million users sharing their location. As of 2023, 70% of Gen Z use Find My’s location sharing, and as of 2025, Life360 has more than 91 million users.
These percentages and numbers show a significant increase in location sharing. M-A students shared their thoughts about these features.
Sophomore Naim Munguia thinks that location sharing is just for family, not friends. “You have to be close, personal. You can only share location with family,” Munguia said. “If you share with your friends, it’s not platonic anymore, y’all like each other. Why do I have to know where you’re at?”
Some students have different opinions on the matter, depending on which app is in use. “On Snapchat, I don’t share my location with anyone. The people that would need to find me with my location have it on messages,” junior Atessa Gholamy said. Gholamy thinks that the idea of sharing your location with strangers is off-putting. “It’s weird if I add someone on Snapchat, and I just know where they live, and I have no idea who this person is,” she said.
For some, location sharing is a matter of safety. “I think [location sharing] is good because if your friend is lost somewhere, you can find them easily,” freshman Brianna Henriquez said. Location sharing can also cater towards lighter, unserious situations. “If [your friend] comes to school late and you’re in school by yourself, you could track their location to see when they’re gonna come,” she said.
Junior Ryan Cunningham also believes that location sharing should be limited to family members. “It’s good for family to know where you are, but I don’t think friends should have each other’s locations,” he said. “Why would [your friends] need to have it?”
Freshman Luis Tava finds sharing locations with strangers to be unsettling. “I’ll share my location with really close friends and my parents. But random people that hit me up like, ‘Hey, let’s share locations.’ Nah. If I don’t know you, why would I want your location and why would I want you to know where I live?” freshman Luis Tava said.
While location sharing is widely popular, students hold varying opinions on the subject. The dilemma students face when deciding whether or not to share their locations alludes to a broader question of how privacy is changing in a digital era.
