It’s easy to sneak onto your partner’s phone. Don’t.
Most Americans think snooping on a partner’s phone is a
bad thing to do, but that hasn’t stopped more than a third of people in
committed relationships from doing it anyway, according to Pew research published Friday.
As many of us find ourselves cooped up with our partners and our phones
for the foreseeable future, the researchers suggest that using this
technology is not necessarily great for the health of our long-term
relationships.
As tempting as it may be to snoop, please don’t.
Pew’s study, conducted last October, involved surveying
nearly 5,000 US adults who were asked a wide variety of questions about
their digital habits and their relationship status, including questions
about whether they’d ever looked up an ex on social media and with whom
they shared their passwords.
A number of questions also revolved around phone
snooping. Of those surveyed, 34 percent of people in committed
relationships admitted to snooping on their partner’s phone without
their knowledge. Interestingly, the survey also found that 42 percent of
women (who are in relationships) say they’ve snooped through their
current partners’ phones without them knowing, while just 25 percent of
men say they have. Some 70 percent of people say that this activity is
rarely or never acceptable.
“As smartphones have the ability to bring people together
and the ability to connect, we see there are often some mixed effects,”
Monica Anderson, associate director of research at Pew who focuses on
technology and the internet, told Recode. “These technologies have
helped in terms of communication and giving people a space to talk about
their relationship, but there are also some negative side effects as
well.”
Again, it looks like the vast majority of Americans think
that secretly looking through a partner’s phone is a bad thing, though
it’s easy to imagine how tempting it might be to check if your loved one
is cheating, especially if a phone is left unattended. In a 2019 survey from HP, 60 percent of people said they would look at a text message that popped up in preview mode on a partner’s phone screen.
“When people sneak a peek at their partner’s phone, it
feeds secrecy and distrust into the relationship, both of which are
likely to be the primary reasons the person is checking in the first
place,” therapist Kurt Smith told the HuffPost last year.
A
bit of a side note: Social media behavior isn’t always great for
relationships, either. About a quarter of people in committed
relationships are bothered by how much time their significant other
spends on these sites which, according to Pew, cause more frustration
than video games. What’s more problematic is that more than half of
partnered people use social media to check up on people they used to
date. More generally, about 25 percent of those whose partners used
these services said they were anxious or unsure about how their partners
are actually using these platforms.
But again, the big takeaway from this new Pew study is the simple fact that seven out of 10 people do not think it’s okay to snoop through a partner’s phone. Don’t do it!
In fact, this new Pew study seems to suggest that phones
in general can be a strain on a relationship. More than half of
Americans complain that their partners are at least sometimes
preoccupied by their devices while they’re trying to have a
conversation, the Pew data says. A whopping 40 percent of people in
relationships report that they’re annoyed by how much time their partner
spends on their phone.
But our reliance on smartphones has also created a new
way we can show that we trust our partners. Pew reports that 75 percent
of all adults in committed relationships share their phone passwords,
while 42 percent have shared a password to a social media account. But
while younger people are more likely to share cellphone passcodes, older
adults seem more willing to share email passwords.
If you’re the privacy-liking sort of couple, there are a
few things you can do to keep your partner, or anyone else, from poking
around in your phone. Simple steps include setting up your phone to
require a passcode or a biometric login, such as a fingerprint or face
scan, to unlock. (Some worry about privacy issues with biometric security,
but a passcode can be just as secure.) If you’re worried about the
content of messages or notifications popping up on the screen, you can
go to your phone’s settings and turn off text previews or notifications
for specific apps. And if you’re looking for even more ways to keep
people from snooping, Lifehacker has a good guide.
Still, snooping through your partner’s cellphone? Don’t do it.
Comments
Post a Comment