Will You Share Your Password If You Are In Love?

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 20 January 2012, 01:43 IST   |    1 Comments
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Counselors and parents usually preach the wisdom of password privacy. Winifred Lender, child psychologist in Santa Barbara, had ‘digital contracts’ signed by her 3 sons, which outlined terms for how much media they will consume, how they will behave online and the password privacy. Lender said, her 14 year old son was recently asked by a friend for his password. Her son responded “You give me yours and I'll give you mine." The boy was stunned but then relied on a tried-and-true excuse for saying no. Lender said "He blamed it on his parents." He said “If I give you my password, my mom will have a cow."

In another incident, Emily Cole, a high school junior who exchanged her password with her boyfriend faced the password betrayal. She said it was deeply hurtful and yet despite what happened, she would not have reservations about sharing her password with her new boyfriend.

Emily's mother, Patti, a child psychologist, said she believed her daughter would be more cautious now about sharing a password. She is of the opinion that young people are sometimes drawn to such behavior as they might be toward sex, in part because parents and others warn them against doing so. She said "What worries me is we haven't done a very good job at stopping kids from having sex. So I'm not real confident about how much we can change this behavior."