I was curious if people really use Find My Friends for friends - I only have my spouse and I think it’d be awkward to ask anyone else to share their location.
How many of your immediate household members are on your Find My Friends list?
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How many of those immediate household members are family members?
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How many family members who don’t live with you are on your Find My Friends list?
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How many unrelated persons who don’t live with you are on your Find My Friends list?
We use it when meeting non household and friends with iPhones e.g. if we are holidaying with others. It helps us co-ordinate arrival time without phoning. But only household family all of the time.
My wife and I had the kids on FMF when they lived here and we shared our location with them as well. We actually found my son’s iPhone with it one night when it came home from a night out with friends and forgot where it might have left it. Once they left the house, we cut that off as it no longer had a practical use.
The wife and I still use it. Pre-covid she used to travel by plane a lot and when she would return home it was often at a time when she had not eaten supper. I had FMF set to alert me when she arrived at the airport so I could have a nice meal ready for her.
While she is now still working from home, she will often take a mid-day walk of a couple of miles. Just this week we had a pop-up thunderstorm during her walk and I was able to identify which street she was on and go pick her up. Yes, FMF can be creepy if people abuse it, but we’ve seen some very practical applications of it.
We used to use it when we were leaving work. The agreement was that whoever left work first would collect the kids. So we’d check when leaving if the other was already on the road. Again, it saved a phone call.
With my daughters it’s been handy when picking them up, say in town. They don’t have the best special awareness (or as I say, they’re geographically dialectic) so I can easily see where they are.
Yes, that reminds me of another use where the kids were the ones using it. If as a parent you are supposed to pick up one of them from an after school event at say 6:30, you can bet they will start texting “Where are you?” at 6:25! Since I refuse to look at or answer texts while driving, this was useless for all. For those times, I had them FMF for my location, then if they could see I was on the road they would know approximately what time I would be there. If my location was home, then they knew they could text me in case I needed a reminder to get on the road.
I don’t have it permanently turned on for anybody, but I do turn it on for a few hours or for a day when I am driving long-distance to visit a friend or relative (so they can check on my progress on a map rather than calling or texting me), or I am supposed to meet up with a friend or a relative, especially if we are meeting in a place we are not very familiar with, or one of us is picking the other one up in a car on a street somewhere, to make it less stressful.
My wife and I both have it on for each other, typically for either: 1) are you still at the store or 2) are you still at work. That said, we call it the stalker app, but the usefulness for when to start dinner outweigh the creepiness of it.
I have a friend who we are on each other’s Find My Friend. We both suffer depression and suicidal thoughts. So if one of us can’t be contacted or not answering, it’s a good idea to check out our location if we are somewhere safe or accessible.
My sister, a nurse who works in a hospital. She works in another country with a 12-hour diference. I don’t want to disturb her while she works so I check if she’s in the hospital or not before messaging. Some of my siblings live in a different city or country.
Most of our family is in it because some of us no longer live in the same household. There’s also senior citizens who couldn’t be bothered in answering their phone so we check her location when she’s out.
FMF saved a phone call or a message that can interrupt people. We don’t find it creepy at all if its family.
For my wife and I, it doesn’t seem at all creepy, & it’s a lot easier than trying to constantly keep one another informed of our changing arrival times in the L.A. traffic.
This exact same thing happened as well to my girlfriend. She went to a salon then a thunderstorm came. I don’t know exactly where she went but I know it’s just a walking distance from where we live so I checked her location and brought her an umbrella. She doesn’t even know it was raining cats and dogs outside.
I would never let anyone track my every movement, no need at all. Zeros all the way for me. I value privacy too much.
Me and my wife have certainly never seen a need for this. I simply agree a time that I’ll be home each day, and that’s never failed to work for me. If I’m going to be late, I send an iMessage.
We actually use it quite a bit. My wife, and two of my sons have it on and share our location. My wife’s parents have it on and share their location with us. They are 79 now, and quite active, but its nice to know where they are in case we can’t reach them in an emergency. I don’t consider it stalking and our family is very open and honest with one another. Also, my brother is an over the road trucker, and he has it turned on so that his wife and my wife, his sister, can see where he is at. We have found it very useful over the past couple of years.
Thanks to all who have replied! N=60 (almost…) which is more than I anticipated - now I wish I’d put it on Qualtrics or Google Forms and asked for demographic info. as well so I could run correlations…(but given how adamant some respondents are re: privacy that might have excluded some…).
