Location Sharing Survey: 62% of Americans Share Locations, Many Regret It

In an era where smartphones have become an extension of ourselves, location sharing has evolved from a safety feature to a social convention. With user-friendly apps like Find My and Life360, sharing your location (and checking up on others’ locations) has become a cultural norm for parents looking to track their kids, spouses checking up on commutes, or even friends wondering whether someone made it home from the bar.

While location sharing offers safety and social features, it also raises questions about privacy, trust, and how much oversight is too much when it comes to your loved ones.

To find out more about location sharing trends, we surveyed 1,000 Americans to understand how many share their locations, why, and what the real consequences of location sharing have been for them.

Key findings

• 62% of Americans share their locations, but the practice is much more common among younger generations.
• Gen Z is 4x as likely to share locations with friends compared to older Americans, with 75% of Gen Z enabling location sharing on their phones.
• Location sharing is still primarily about safety vs. spying: 78% of location sharers said they do so for safety reasons, vs. only 22% who use it to build trust.
• Among parents with location-sharing access to data on where their children are, 58% check their child’s location every single day.
• Nearly 1 in 5 (17%) married people who share their location regret doing so.

Who do you share your location with?

Location-sharing apps like Find My come pre-installed on most smartphones, while popular services like Life360 offer inexpensive or free membership tiers, all of which make it easier than ever for people to share data on where they are with other people in real time.

Because it’s so easy to do, adoption has become more and more widespread. We asked 1,000 Americans how many share their location, and with whom.

Overall, 62% of Americans said they share their mobile locations with a loved one or friend. While people of all ages report enabling the service, it is most popular among younger generations (75% among Gen Z and 70% among Millennials). Comparatively, a little less than half of Baby Boomer and Gen X users (49% each) share their location.

When it comes to who they share with, the most common answer is with a spouse or partner, followed by kids and parents. Perhaps most notably, however, is the rate at which people share locations with friends. Specifically, Gen Z reports sharing locations with friends 4x more often than older Americans, a marked shift in teen culture who are adopting the technology at a rapid rate.

Why are more and more Americans enabling location sharing on their phones?

Depending on who you share with, the reasons behind location sharing can vary widely. We wanted to know the primary drivers for enabling location sharing among users.

Unsurprisingly, safety is the number one driver for opting to share your location. 78% of those who share their location with at least one other person cite safety as their primary motivation. After safety, respondents cited convenience (like coordinating meetups or pickups), monitoring family members or children, and building trust as primary drivers for adopting the technology.

How often do users check others’ locations?

Since the benefits of having access to someone’s location are greater the more times you actually use it, we asked users how often users check on the locations they have access to.

Among users who can check on other people’s locations through location sharing, many take advantage of this feature frequently. Nearly half (49%) say they check on someone else’s whereabouts at least once every single day.

Parents regularly embrace the monitoring abilities that parental monitoring and location-sharing technology provide, as more than half of respondents (58%) check where their kids are at least once a day, and 89% check at least once a month. It is worth noting that these stats are based on a smaller sample size than the whole, as only parents who use location sharing with their children are counted here.

When it comes to romantic relationships, nearly two-thirds of respondents (64%) say they check where their spouse or romantic partner is at least once a week, including 42% who say they check every single day. While many people check on their significant other regularly, this also appears to be the relationship where trust is strongest, as more than a quarter of users with access to their partner’s location data (27%) report that they rarely or never utilize that access to check on their partner’s location.

1 in 3 Americans has caught a friend or family member lying about their location

Location sharing technology can be used to keep people safe and help coordinate physical meet-ups, and it can also reveal when certain people are lying about where they are and what they are doing.

Thankfully for those who believe in love, spouses and romantic partners are the group that has been caught lying about their location at the lowest rate. Just 17% of respondents say that they have caught their significant other somewhere other than where they should be using location sharing.

On the other hand, more than a third of respondents (35%) say they have caught a close friend lying about where they are because of location sharing, while a little more than a quarter say the same about their siblings. Outside of spouses and romantic partners, parents are the relationship where they are least often caught lying about their location, as just 20% report having caught their parents in such a lie before.

A large number of people regret sharing their location with friends and family

Being able to give different people in your life unfettered access to your location in real-time is a relatively new phenomenon for most people, and one that some users may regret engaging in.

A quarter of users who share their location with close friends report that they regret doing so, while more than 1 in 5 say they wish they hadn’t shared their location with their children. 17% of respondents regret sharing their location with their spouse or romantic partner, and the same proportion say they wish they hadn’t given their parents access to location data.

Tips for sharing your location safely

There are plenty of steps you can take to make sure everyone feels as comfortable as possible when sharing their location.

• Keep your kids safe without overstepping boundaries. See how your tracking method stacks up against some other top brands with our best parental control app comparison page.
• If you feel uncomfortable giving your actual location, change it manually. If you’re being pressured by an employer or close friend to share your location, you can always manually change your location on your iPhone and on your Android.
• Make sure your location isn’t being tracked without your permission. If you believe your location is being shared and viewed without your consent, look into some of the best anti-spyware software to keep yourself protected.

Methodology

All About Cookies surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults ages 18 or older using a survey platform in August 2025. Results were stratified across age and gender to create a nationally representative sample.