Intimate surveillance of the ordinary: youth's negotiation of digital location tracking with parents and peers

Abstract

Digital location tracking (DLT) is increasingly prevalent in young people's lives. This qualitative study adopts a youth-centric lens, drawing on Feminist Science & Technology Studies and Communication Privacy Management theory, to investigate how young people negotiate DLT with parents and peers. Based on 21 focus groups with 147 young people (aged 13-16) in Belgium, the study demonstrates youth's DLT as an agentic process of boundary negotiation guided by their sense of autonomy and safety. Three implicit rules govern DLT boundaries: (a) access is reserved for close, trusted connections, DLT must (b) remain non-continuous, and (c) confirm ordinary, routine whereabouts. These boundaries are negotiated through 3 strategies: (a) humor, (b) revoking location access, (c) circumvention. The study shows how these negotiations build on a "risky world" premise and how young people reproduce and challenge gender stereotypes throughout. Ultimately, through both acceptance and resistance, young people question and normalize everyday surveillance culture. Digital location tracking is becoming increasingly popular with social media tools like Snapchat's Snap Map or dedicated tools like Life360 or Apple's Find My and AirTag. Research increasingly investigates digital location tracking in family life. However, this research remains limited, and young people not only use these tools with parents but also with peers. Therefore, this study investigates how young people negotiate digital location tracking with parents and peers. This study is based on 21 focus groups with 147 young people (aged 13-16) in Belgium. The results show that digital location tracking builds on the premise of the world as a "risky place" and is generally accepted, as long as it: (a) is used with trusted, close connections, (b) remains non-continuous, and (c) confirms ordinary, routine whereabouts (e.g., school routes) instead of new information. By using humor (e.g., jokingly calling others "stalker"), by revoking access to their location, and by circumventing, young people enforce acceptable practices of digital location tracking. In this process, young people reproduce and challenge gender stereotypes and ultimately question and normalize everyday surveillance culture.