Life360

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About

Life360 is a location-based networking app available for iOS and Android users. The app is designed for families and allows family members to monitor each other's whereabouts.

History

In 2008, Life360 was released to the Android marketplace by founders Chris Hulls and Alex Haro. In 2013, Life360 integrated with BMW navigation systems. In 2016, Life360 added premium services which added emergency services and in January 2018, home security system ADT announced that they would partner with Life360.^[1]

Features

Life360 allows a users to apply alerts when family members change their location from set "geofences" like their home or school.^[1] On June 8th, 2016, YouTuber Phandroid uploaded a tutorial for Life360 highlighting its basic features (shown below). The video gained over 450,200 views in two years.

Life 360 offers a premium subscription for seven dollars a month which includes roadside assistance, stolen phone insurance, the ability to add more geofences and to view a family member's location history.^[1]

Highlights

In 2015, According to Pew Research^[3] 16% of parents of children ages 13 to 17 admitted to using location tracking on their children. Due to the app's popularity, parents and psychologist have argued over the ethical problems surrounding monitoring children. Both the New York Times^[4] and Wired^[2] have published articles on the topic.

On July 17th, 2016, Redditor yong598 asked r/teenagers^[5] if anyone else's parents make them use the app. The post gained over 45 comments in two years. On October 14th, 2018, Redditor moon4040 asked r/raisedbynarcissists^[6] if there were anyways to "hack/modify" the app. The Redditor explained that their mother was always tracking their location even though they are in college which gives them anxiety. The post received over 40 points (98% upvoted) and 58 comments in nine months.

On December 19th, 2018, Redditor RogueTwo43 posted an Out of Nowhere is Spetnaz image illustrating the limitations of the app (shown below, left). The post gained over 130 points (100% upvoted) in seven months. Twitter users also posted about reservations about the app. Twitter user @codenamemar^[7] posted a Black Mirror still captioned, "just installing my #life360 !!" (shown below, center). On July 18th, Twitter user @lenius_kylie^[8] tweeted, "Our parents just tried to get us to sign up for life 360 and I have never seen us siblings stand together like this before" which received 40 likes in four days (shown below, right).

On July 20th, Twitter user @svmversace posted a tutorial on how to pause your location (shown below). There are many other videos and descriptions on how to disable the app in various forums.

TikTok

In June 2019, Many TikTok users whose family uses Life360 have created videos that illustrate their aggravation with the app. On June 10th, TikTok user @gabeservi uploaded a video about the car tracking feature (shown below, left). The video gained over 104,200 likes and 2,700 shares in a month. On June 18th, @christneko uploaded a video describing ways of disabling the app which gained over 505,100 likes in a month. On July 8th, TikToker @sam.ridilla uploaded another Life360 themed video which garnered over 138,200 likes and 6,500 shares in a week.