When is sharing things good for a relationship and when does sharing between partners go too far? How important do you think it is for teenagers to have “trust rituals” like this one? Is the need the same for adults? What can parents do about something like this, if anything?
Doing things like this is really dangerous, for obvious reasons which I am not going to analyze. This however is the main cause why they do that. With other one's password it is easy to "spice up" their life (in bad way mostly) but you can also not do anything with it. I have shared my password with my brothers (involuntary, but I was too lazy to do anything with it) and I didn't experience any problem with that, because I also known theirs. We never did anything like infamous "I am gay" wall post, not even chatting from other's account. We did not look at each other's conversations nor emails, so it worked pretty good. I think though that sharing password is different.
ReplyDeleteMain difference is that whatever we do, we are still brothers, which (sadly) can't be said about relationships. They may end under bad circumstances, like the one in article for example. I don't think I want anything like that to happen to me. When anyone asks me, I am certain I will say "NO!". If this is being done to show trust, why can't I trust her that she trusts me? This is also what I think about trust rituals.
I think that I will let my children be free about things like this. I don't know if I would have them even as friends on Facebook. Certainly I will tell them about dangers of this, but I believe in free choice, so in the end it's theirs. If they burn themselves, it's their fault and they have to live with that. This I think is better school than any other I know.
There has only been one emergency in my life that has forced me to tell someone the password to my email, and although it was my brother, one of the people I trust most in the world, I changed it to a completely different password as soon as I gained access to the Internet. Even though I knew that my brother would never do look through my emails nor do anything to hurt me, I still had the need to secure my privacy, which, in my opinion, is completely natural.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe that sharing a password is a thing of trust, but I think it ironically hints more at an individual’s insecurity about the other person’s loyalty and an almost obsessive need to invade another person’s private life. If I knew that another person could read my private messages with others, I would feel uncomfortable and anxious even if I would have nothing to hide. When, in a relationship, one has the need to check up on their partner like this, it just means that you don’t completely trust what they tell you and are still doubtful of their true feelings. One of the comments that was written as a response this article completely sums up my opinion on this teenage trend and it goes like this, “Trust would be NOT sharing your passwords with each other and knowing in your heart that your partner is not doing anything they would need to hide, but you trust and respect them enough to preserve their privacy.”
Adults, unlike teenagers, seem to realize the importance of personal privacy in relationships and thus most do not feel the need to share passwords to emails or online sites. Of course, this doesn’t mean all don’t, but they have probably learned to only provide individuals that they know they can completely trust with this information. Like Milan, I think that I would warn my children about the possible dangers of such actions and advise them not to share their passwords, but I would not ‘beat it into their heads’. I would trust them to be intelligent enough to notice the dangers and absurdity of providing someone with complete access to their email or social site account.
Sharing a password is a completely common thing. We all have either done it or at least thought of it. I know it from my own experience, because all of my best friends know my passwords for Facebook, Gmail and probably even some other websites. I have nothing to hide from them, because I really tell them anything. I fully trust them. However, I am not saying it is a good idea to give your password to your friends or boyfriend/girlfriend. You really have to trust the person you give your password to.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of giving your password to a friend so he/she can change it and you can study for your exams, without being disturbed. I know exactly the feeling, when I need to study for a test and I just want to check what is new on Facebook, and somehow I found myself still online after two hours. So it is really a good idea to give your password to a friend so you can focus on your studies.
However, sharing a password with a boyfriend/girlfriend can be much more complicated. Even though I think it is a really nice gesture, it can be very hurtful in many cases. You never know what is going to happen in a few months, weeks, and you would be really surprised how even people who your fully trust can be mean to you. I think you should think twice before sharing your password with your boyfriend/girlfriend. I agree that as you get older and you have a relationship with someone, you trust him in a completely different way, and sharing each other’s passwords isn’t necessary for proving your love towards the other person.
I also agree with the statement that sharing your password is in some way similar to sex. Sex is another way of how to express your love towards the other person, and that is really similar to sharing your password. There are also people who think that in a relationship you have to give everything to each other. That means passwords, or your virginity. There are many people who think that in a relationship you have to share everything.
In conclusion, I suggest the parents to warn their kids of against the consequences which can occur when you share your password with other people. However, they should not forget it is their decision. I am not saying it is completely bad to share your passwords with your friends or partners, but you should think twice before doing so.
Sharing things can be in my opinion both, good and bad in a relationship. It depends on what exactly you are sharing. Sharing for example material things isn’t bad, it ts rather considered to be cute and sweet. Though, as the article mentioned, sharing personal stuff like passwords or usernames isn’t in my opinion a good idea. Various things may happen. However, it can really be a “sign of trust“ to the person we are in a relationship with, but as different examples of this misuse sharing were mentioned, you never know if you can fully trust the person to give them Access to your personal live, usually if you don’t know her/him for long. There are many other ways how you can show trust to each other, it doesn’t necessarily need to be something this personal. Spending a lot of time with each other, telling stories and secrets and letting no one to know about them also builds the trust, even though i f it is a really „slow process“. I would call swapping of passwords rather a form of knowing if someone cheated. Though, if someone wants to cheat on the other person then can still do it without social networks or with no one knowing it. In my opinion, adults do not have such problems as these; these are most likely to appear only in the teenage years. Adults don’t usually visit social networks that often and even if they do, they are already marriage. They usually “suffer“ from more serious problems, though trust also occurs, but the consequences are more serious than they can be in teenage ages. I don’t think that parents can do much about it because teenagers are usually stubborn and they want to act independently, even though it is not always good. They just need the time to get over their puberty. I also don’t agree with the psychologists that claim that sharing is like having sex. Those are totally two different things, even though “there is pressure in many teenage relationships”.
ReplyDeleteI would be rather inclined to conform to the generally accepted norm that password and private details or information sharing is reckless, unnecessary and irresponsible. Presenting someone with such information, regardless one’s personal connection to them, as a sign of trust seems like the poorest of choices one could have made to me. Behind the anonymity of the cyber-realm, trust is a term, which becomes quite disfigured and twisted. Coupled with the lack of controlling authorities, this gives rise to a winning formula for harming a person by information misusage rather than for strengthening a relationship. Although thing must be shared between the partners in a relationship, there are some things, which are meant for and best kept to oneself, and I believe passwords, for one, belong to this group. Should there ever be a need to subject a partner to investigations such as reading emails and private messages, even then I do not think password sharing would be justified, as more often than not will there be a bigger fundamental problem than a mere trust-based issue. Furthermore, if a person, who has shared a password with his/her partner, later on decides to change it, it could give rise to a whole new set of problems as the act of changing the password would be viewed and deemed as a form of distrust by the other party.
ReplyDeleteNormally, there would be only one case, where I would allow and accept the sharing of passwords, and this is during an emergency. If, for example, a person desperately needs some vital pieces of information from his email or social networking profile, but has no access to the Internet at the moment, then it would be acceptable to share the password and have someone retrieve the information for you. The only other example I find acceptable is to manage accounts. If once again, for whatever reasons, one does not have Internet access, one might chose to entrust a friend with their account and have them handle it for the time being.
As far as parenting is concerned, I don’t believe parents have to necessarily emphasize on hiding passwords. During the pre-adolescent and teenage years it isn’t as devastating for children to have their passwords disclosed as is with, say, Social Security Numbers, Birth Dates, Names and Addresses. By the time the kids mature, they will already be aware of the perils of password sharing themselves.
Comment on Sabina's comment:
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sabina, when she said that sharing things in a relationship can be both a good and a bad thing. It also really depends on what you are sharing. You can never know if he/she will not tell your password to someone, either by a mistake, or on purpose. You can never know what will happen, it is always a risk. It is the same when you tell your password to your friend, you have no guarantee that he/she will not try to harm you, but it is all up to you. If you trust the person you gave your password to, everything is aright. I also agree with Sabina that sharing of the passwords is more of a way how to check if the other partner has not cheated. I think that it is crazy if someone would take advantage of it in this was, but as I know myself, I would probably do it. However, if the other person really wants to cheat he/she will find a way how. I think that there also may be some adults who have these problems, but it is probably more a teenage issue. Teenagers are the one who like to experiment, and do everything in the other way. By other way I mean the way that their parents say is the bad one. They like to try new things and risk. I do not really think that parents can do something about it, because a young person has to experience it on his own skin to realize that this way is the wrong one. However, I do not really agree with Sabina that sex and sharing passwords is something completely different. It is in some way, but if you look at it from a different point of view, that it is some kind of trust ritual, it has the same idea.
The idea of sharing a password being taken as a trust ritual is impossible. It is a logical contradiction that negates itself making itself impossible to practice if it is possible to practice it. It is a logical paradox. You say, that giving your password to someone implies that you trust that person. It says you have nothing to hide. If you are to trust the other person with this and the trust is mutual, the other person should therefore not want to take your password. If the other person trusts you (within the realm of “sharing a password is a trust ritual”) he would not even need your password as a proof of the fact that you have nothing to hide from him and would reject taking it as a sign of this trust. If the other person took your password, it is a sign of the exact opposite. The other person does not trust you and needs your password as an ensuring reason to trust you. You cannot complete the actual “sharing” of the password (which should prove your mutual trust) without implying that you do not trust each other without the piece of evidence (the exact opposite).
DeleteSo, actually NOT sharing your passwords (or better said not even having the need to DISCUSS it) is a much more powerful show of trust. But you cannot even discuss the need to discuss it, without eventually coming to a conclusion that would prove both that you trust each other and that you do not trust each other. Infinite recursion.
After considering Simon´s comment on my comment I realized that Simon is actually pretty right in some things he stated. I really agree that if you trust the person enough, and you love him/her, you will not even ask him/her to give you their password. It really shows that you can trust the other person if you do not even think about wanting to know his password. Love can be proved in many other ways, and probably sharing each other’s passwords is not the best way how to show someone your love.
DeleteFrom the other point of view, I do not mind sharing my password with some good friends, because I trust them and I know they trust me. I did not give them my password as a sign of trust, but because I wanted her to go on my Facebook account or check my email when I did not have access to a computer. However it was also a sign of trust from one point of view, because I have to trust someone to give him my password.
In conclusion I found out that I was being a bit wrong when I said that sharing a password with your partner i sok because i tis a sign of trust. I tis just a way how to control your partner, and that is all caused because you do not trust him. That is why I think i tis really wrong and inconvenient to share your password with your partner.