Tracking the Phones of Loved Ones Is Problematic. Pil Do It Anyway.

When so much of life is uncertain, an illusion of control feels especially precious.

For the first time in human tory, histhe average Joe can track their family and friends' exact locations at all times. Any phone offers the seductive ability to "find my people," to conjure them in space, to pinpoint their movements. If you have an appetite for this stuff, there is a stepped-up version of the location app where you can see if someone is driving too fast or when they arrived at school.

Parents generally say that they are tracking teenagers for safety reasons. It is reassuring to see the emanating green dot of your 14-year-old walking home at midnight. I think of my own mother, who just had to hope that her daughters, crisscrossing Manhattan by subway at 2 a.m., were not in the middle of a crime scene. There wasn't even a latenight text telling her where we were. How did anyone sleep back then? I have a feeling, though, that many parents tracking their children are craving more than just the peace of knowing they are safe. One of my friends, who likes to check the locations of her adult children, says, "it gives me a feeling of control." Tracking bestows some sense of glittering connection that you don't otherwise have when your children are rattling around remote places.

Watching their dot hover on a street corner, you feel a link, a pleasurable blip of being conjoined, illusory or deranged as it may be.