I first started using Find My Friends at university to help put my parents at ease. But by the end of Freshers’ Week, I had over 50 friends on the app. I’d stalk who was pre-drinking where, who was somewhere they shouldn’t be (namely, their ex-boyfriend’s flat) and ease my hangxiety after bingeing Netflix in bed all day after seeing they hadn’t moved either.
It was originally launched as Find Your Phone in 2009 to, well, find your misplaced, stolen, or lost phone, before rebranding in 2019 — and has now become an unexpected social media network in its own right. It all started back in 2017 when mass location-sharing apps like Snapchat’s Snapmap (which showed the whereabouts of users’ digital avatars on a virtual map) and Google Maps’ location sharing launched. Despite previous generations being renowned for craving privacy, millennials and Gen Z were more than happy to allow others to creep on their location 24/7.
