New trend in young love? Sharing passwords

Young couples have a longstanding tradition of sharing various meaningful intimacies, from exchanging class rings and pendants to locker combinations; the digital age introduces a new twist on an old ritual.

The information age has given rise to – information intimacy. Passwords to email, Facebook and Twitter accounts are now routinely shared by boyfriends and girlfriends around the world, and young lovers even create identical passwords to allow each other to read personal email and texts.

The sentiment is essentially sweet yet risky. We can all imagine a hair-raising scenario after a relationship sours and one of the lovers decides to take revenge. Using secrets against an enemy is an age-old ploy. But that is what makes the symbolism behind a shared password so powerful.

Tiffany Carandang, a high school senior in San Francisco, says it is a sign of trust. “I have nothing to hide from him, and he has nothing to hide from me,” she says. She and her boyfriend have shared passwords for Facebook and email for months. “I know he’d never do anything to hurt my reputation,” she added.

That remains to be seen, as most of us who have been on the dating scene can attest. Students, parents and school administrators can also recount incidents in which shared online secrets led to humiliations, tensions over excessive perusing of emails and texts for clues of infidelity, or even theft of a device.

Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes, says the sharing of passwords, and the pressure to do so, is akin to the pressures to have sex. Sharing passwords is exciting, she says, because it is generally forbidden and discouraged by adults, who do not want their children’s vulnerabilities so exposed.

“The response is the same: if we’re in a relationship, you have to give me anything,” Wiseman said.

A 2011 survey of 770 teenagers found that 30 percent had shared a password with a friend, boyfriend or girlfriend. The survey, which included teens ages 12-17, found that girls were twice as likely as boys to share a password.

Password sharing is a linchpin of 21st century intimacy, says Sam Biddle of the website Gizmondo.com. “I’ve known plenty of couples who have shared passwords, and not a single one has not regretted it,” said Mr. Biddle in an interview. He said that misbehavior rarely occurs because of the unspoken notion of mutually assured destruction, but that may not always hold true. Sometimes a partner can come across deeply private material which he or she can then disseminate indiscriminately as vicious rumor.

Counselors and parents generally advise against password sharing but are aware that this is an uphill battle, as peer pressure demands often outweigh their well-intentioned counsels.

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Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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