Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how tracking technologies are increasingly used within families in Munich as a ‘third gaze’ beyond face-to-face watching, and how these technologies are welcomed by some as a form of care, and resisted by others due to perceived risks associated with third party tracking.

Paper long abstract:

In 2017, smart dolls such as ‘My Friend Cayla’ or technologies with undercover listening functions were classified as illegal espionage software in Germany. Recently, tracking technologies that allow parents and children to watch each other legally are on the rise, e.g. parents tracking their children’s geolocations, or children checking their family member’s locations at a distance.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Munich, this paper focuses on the role of technologies 'as a third' in child-parent relationships. Some install family tracking apps such as Life360 or buy smartwatches for their children, hence enabling location tracking to occur at a distance and in the background, often without users directly interacting with the apps or devices. Likewise, screen time monitoring that is possible within some of these same apps often happens without the direct intervention of the parent, except when they install this initially.

While technologies are sometimes welcomed as a ‘third gaze’ that can support families in providing care and managing family life, others are more hesitant towards digital tracking technologies arguing that there are risks associated with the use of these, since third parties can potentially join this kind of watching posing a risk to families.

Drawing on anthropological theories of exchange and ‘the absented third person’ (Rio 2007), this paper discusses how human strangers can both be seen as a threat or an ‘other’ that needs to be guarded against by using a non-human gaze, but unknown community members as potentially benevolent helpers are sometimes trusted more than tracking technologies.