Anxiety is making tech companies a lot of money but it highlights a troubling phenomenon

When the newly appointed chief executive of tracking app Life360 recently described the company as part of the “anxiety economy”, it sounded like a throwaway phrase. But it was also surprisingly candid.

The app, which allows families to track their children’s (or parent’s) whereabouts in real time, is on one in ten phones in the US, according to some reports. What began as a niche product has become part of everyday life for many households.

Life360, along with Snapchat’s Snap Map and Apple’s Find My Friends (or Stalk My Friends as it is called in my family) is promoted as a tool for safety and peace of mind.

But the fact its chief executive was comfortable to explicitly link the app to anxiety and its commercial exploitation highlights a much larger cultural phenomenon: we increasingly exist in a world where our unease, vigilance, and even our guilt is being used for profit.

Technology can prey on anxiety

From an evolutionary perspective, anxiety is mostly a good thing. It evolved to prepare us for potential threats – things like a rustle in the grass keeping us awake at night. This bias means negative or threatening information is more easily and quickly processed.

The difficulty is that the world we inhabit now is very different to the savannah. The same vigilance...

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