Helicopter parent? Yep. Hypocrite? For sure. Why more and more of us are tracking our kids
The shop assistant met my query with total approval. As though what I was seeking – to digitally surveille my own kid – was perfectly normal. So I bought the AirTag, which would nestle into her school backpack and assure me that she had arrived at school safely.
Electronic stalking of children by their parents is increasingly common. And it's a controversial topic. Is it a valid and respectful way to ensure our children's safety? Or is it an invasion of privacy which is contributing to the anxiety epidemic among kids who have only ever known a world dominated by the smartphone?
The phenomenon brings to mind comedian Tina Fey's quip about using Photoshop to digitally alter images: 'it is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society … unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool'.
Whether it's right or wrong, a bias towards surveillance is clearly the prevailing parental sentiment – this week the California-based family tracking app Life360 reported its half-yearly earnings, which showed record revenue growth. The business is worth $9.5 billion, and is expanding into the tracking of ageing relatives and family pets.
In Australia, use of Life360 has surged from 1.9 million monthly active users in 2023 to 2.7 million in 2024.
'We're seeing the rise of what we call the anxiety economy – a shift where families are making more values-based decisions and prioritising peace of mind in how they spend,' said the company's newly announced chief executive, Lauren Antonoff. 'I think of us as the antidote for the anxiety. We're not telling people that there's danger around every corner, but we know that people think about this stuff.'
The company recently released an advertisement that went viral, which satirised the very parental anxiety it monetises. The ad featured a mother singing a Disney-style song to her teenage daughter called I think of you (dying) in which the mother voices her catastrophic thoughts about the fatal disasters that could befall her child while she's out of sight. They include getting stuck in a mine, being kidnapped by bandits and bleeding out on the street.
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