In a recent letter to The Guardian, reader Colin Dryland responded to a previous column by Adrian Chiles regarding the anxieties associated with location-tracking apps. While Chiles had expressed distress over his own obsession with tracking, Dryland offered a counter-perspective based on his personal experience in London.

Dryland explained that he installed a tracking app on his wife’s phone to provide himself with a sense of security while navigating the city. However, he noted that the arrangement has not functioned as intended. According to Dryland, when he calls his wife to ask if she can see his location, she consistently expresses a total lack of interest in his whereabouts. He reports that she refuses to check the app and often ends the conversation abruptly. Dryland jokingly suggested that his wife might be well-suited to provide coaching to others who struggle with the compulsive nature of tracking technology.