"When I was a teenager, I arrived at a friend's house and she accidentally texted me instead of her then boyfriend. "Saoirse is here," she wrote, "we're heading to the shop, OK?" You can imagine my bewilderment when I received the text, and again when I asked if she had meant to send it to her dad or something, and was told that no, her boyfriend just likes to know where she is to make sure she's safe."
"Now, I don't know what he - a 15-year-old without the ability to drive who lived far across town - planned to do if we ran into trouble at the corner shop, but I digress. I was alarmed even then, as it felt strange to me that this couple had that level of surveillance on the go at a time where our phones were dumb compared to the pocket supercomputers we have now."
As a teenager, the narrator received a text meant for a friend's boyfriend that announced the friend's presence and destination. The friend explained that her boyfriend liked to know where she was to ensure her safety. The narrator felt bewildered and asked whether the message had been intended for a parent. The boyfriend was a 15-year-old who lived far across town and could not drive, raising doubts about what he could do in an emergency. The narrator felt alarm at the couple's level of surveillance, noting that phones were far less capable then than today's pocket supercomputers.
Read at Independent
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]