Pew: Spouses partners share passwords, email, social media accounts
Pew Research Center
Roughly two-thirds of partners in a committed relationship share passwords, a practice that makes most security professionals shudder.
Older, retired couples are also very likely to share an e-mail account, social media account, or online calendar, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.
That makes sense: plenty of long-term couples who've been together more than 10 years encountered technology for the first time when they were already together, and may have set up email or Facebook together. Sharing an email account can make it easier for grandma and grandpa to make sure every has the same access to cute grandkid pictures. Even for younger couples, there is great utility in sharing a calendar.
Sharing passwords. however, creates some interesting challenges. For starters, that might give the spouse or partner access to corporate networks, a nightmare for company IT department. A casual "Just log in to my laptop to find out where the party is" moment could be create a long-term vulnerability that few companies are aware of.
Sharing passwords, or PIN codes, can also create temptation to look at a partner's gadget without their permission. Plenty of studies indicate we do this: A U.K. firm found last year, for example, that 62 percent of women and 34 percent of men snoop on their partner's smartphone.
(UPDATE: Former head of the Justice Department's computer crimes unit Mark Rasch reminds me that it's also illegal for spouses/partners to read each other's email. It's " illegal for one partner to read the email of another. There have been people charged with crimes for reading their spouses emails," he wrote to me. Read more from Mark here.)
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The digital age brings with it all manner of complex relationship issues. Reading a lover's private diary would generally have been considered off limits several decades ago; glancing at their text messages is certainly less so. Social norms for these interactions might takes decades to evolve.
Many couples handle a different version of this problem -- sharing money -- by maintaining separate checking accounts and a third joint account. That structure might work in the online world. Pew's research didn't examine that, however, and indicates that many couples simply share single email or social media identities.
67% of internet users in a marriage or committed relationship have shared the password to one or more of their online accounts with their spouse or partner.
11% of couples have an online calendar that they share. Sharing of online calendars tends to be most prevalent among couples in their logistics-intensive middle-age period (i.e. mid-20s through mid-40s)
11% of partnered or married adults who use social networking sites share a social media profile.
27% of internet users in a marriage or committed relationship have an email account that they share with their partner.
For those married or partnered for 5 years or less, just 10% share an email. This rises to 24% for those together for 6 to 10 years and 38% for those married or in a committed relationship for more than ten years just 12% of married or committed adults ages 18-29 share an email address with their partner, compared with 47% among adults ages 65 and older.
Adults earning more than $50,000 in household income are substantially more likely to share an email address with a partner or spouse than those who earn less, with 18% of those earning less than $50,000 a year reporting sharing an email address.
Retirees are substantially more likely to share an email account with their spouse or partner, with 42% of them reporting a shared email address, compared with 24% of those employed full time.
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