'I Think of You (Dying)' makes music from parental anxiety

This 90-second part-animation campaign takes a bold approach that captures a mother's vivid imaginings every time her daughter is out of the house. The tech company behind it, Life360, provides location-based services including the app being advertised here, which was launched in 2008 and enables friends and family to share each other's locations. Life360 describes itself as "the largest family safety app in the world with over 70 million registered users. Our mission is to help families feel together outside the home. We build technology that extends the realm of safety beyond the front door so that families feel safe and synchronized no matter where they are". Features include Crash Detection, which uses phone sensors to identify car accidents and automatically notifies Circle members and emergency contacts, and SOS Alerts, which allow users to manually initiate an alert, sending a message to designated contacts and potentially dispatching emergency services. Which may sound incredibly fab or useful or freakish, but is it likely to assuage a parent's relentless anxiety? Does the campaign reassure, or simply remind us that we live in scary times and/or are subjected to daily horrors in the shape of 'news' bombardments and media 'entertainment' heavily based on gore, murder, violence, and suffering? Up to each of us to decide. What is less arguable is the environmental aspect of such apps, which burn up energy as they require continuous GPS usage and background data processing to track locations. Wherever the tech is leading us, such terrors intruding on a mother's thoughts - however carefully animated - will be understood by many, if not most....

Keywords: Life360 'I Think Of You (Dying)', parental anxiety, family safety app, location-sharing app, director Steve Ayson, songwriter Nick Lutsko, Feral Child