Why Location Software Is Useful for All Ages

Location apps are known to provide information and security for parents looking to protect their loved ones. They use them to monitor children going to school, teenagers still gaining experience on the road, and grandparents living independently. But location-based apps aren’t only about the parents. Children, teenagers, and the elderly can also use GPS data to their benefit.

A Boon for Parental Anxiety

Many parents experience anxiety when their children are away from them, whether driving to a football game or walking down the street from a friend’s house. Location tracking inside family safety apps helps to assuage these fears in various ways.

• Geofencing is one of the most popular options that allow users to set a virtual geographical boundary for a connected device. Custom safe spaces are possible using this feature. Designating areas like the home, school and other trusted locations helps put parents at ease knowing their children are where they say they should be. Parents laud this feature for allowing their children to have more freedom without having to constantly check the location app.
• Location history ties into geofencing by giving updates to the parent each time the child leaves or enters a specific area. Children, especially teenagers, go to many different places independently and parents want them to have that autonomy. Location history and timelines aid proactive parents by giving them insight into where their child is, when they got there, and when they left.
• Alerts in location software give the parent and the family a quick and easy way to notify other members if an emergency situation should arise. Alerts in some software can be pre-programmed to notify the user of a person’s location at different times of the day.

Using these features, parents can stop being anxious and develop a sense of security, while their children can develop and grow their independence with precautions in place.

Teenagers Can Develop Better Driving Habits

According to the CDC, teen and young adult drivers make up a large percentage of driving accidents, injuries and deaths each year — about seven teenagers die daily. Many of these accidents occur late at night or in the early hours of the morning, which pose more of a risk than during the day.

While teenagers may not want parents to watch their every move, one significant benefit to monitoring their driving by GPS is to encourage and develop safer driving habits. Teenagers are still new to the road and prone to taking unnecessary risks. Teaching young drivers what not to do is now possible through applications that guage their driving ability in real-time, in addition to their location.

These apps can tell how smooth or rough an individual is driving based on the multiple sensors already embedded in phones. A detailed summary of the drive is given by showing how many hard stops, quick accelerations, or times the phone is used during the drive. Using this data, the driver and parents can see how well they’re doing on the road or what behaviors might need to be adjusted.

In addition to all of this, driver scores can appeal to some healthy family competition. Gamification features are some of the best ways to positively reinforce good actions or behaviors. Enticing your newer drivers to drive safer for personal clout and reward instead of recklessly driving can be the name of the game.

Children Can Develop Independence

While it may seem that parents have all the power when using a location app, children have the opportunity to discover their independence and autonomy while wearing a locator. This is because the child can still be given the freedom to travel to different places by the parent while using GPS as a safety net.

For example, a child already in a geofenced safe area at a friend’s house wants to go to a nearby park that is also deemed safe. The app will notify the parent that their child left the safe space and show what direction they are going.

Once the child reaches the park, another notification will be sent to the parent saying they arrived. The trip to the park is documented in the app, showing how the child got to the park. While the parent can look over the travel log, they know their child has safely reached the park, while at the same time, the child had the freedom to travel there on their own.

Older Family Members Can Remain Independent

Living life with autonomy is something that everyone wishes to have, but older members of the family might require some additional level of assistance in their daily lives. That assistance can come in the form of a location-based aid so they can feel reassured that they have adequate help if needed without being burdened with losing their independence.

Location apps can benefit older family members by giving them the tools to sound an emergency alert if they need help. Aging in place brings the risk of accidents, which can occur both at home or on the road, with older drivers accounting for a higher number of driving incidents.

Additionally, alerts, either done manually or by geofencing, can be used effectively to immediately get the attention of family members in case of an emergency. Utilizing the same features that help teens and kids alike, older adults can retain their freedom while still having a safety net and their family members have a sense of security with a digital way of being aware of potential events for concern.

Location safety apps are just another tool to help keep families safe. Of course, families should still rely on traditional methods and remain proactive in their communication with one another. However, each age group can use available GPS data to also ensure the safety of themselves and their loved ones and provide another layer of protection.