by Bill Ives
June 7, 2010 at 3:26 am
· Filed under Facebook, Social Media, Twitter
I have been writing about some of the interesting Retreveo studies (see last year’s Study of Social Media Addiction from Retrevo). The latest Retrevo Gadgetology study asked people whether or not they found it too tempting to spy on someone else’s email. They discovered that 38% those under 25, in a dating relationship have “snooped” on their boyfriends or girlfriends messages. Unfortunately, 10% of that age group who “snooped” discovered that the other person was unfaithful and ended up breaking off the relationship. When they expand the group to include everyone, the percentage of email snoopers goes down to 28%.
While couples in a dating relationship snoop slightly more than married couples, 36% of couples in a committed relationship (spouses and partners) indicated they check emails or call histories without their significant other’s knowledge. Compared to the 10% of dating couples who discovered infidelities only 3% of this group in committed relationships discovered they were being cheated on, still not a good result.
Is this high level of personal spying a reflection of a lack of trust or the tempting curiosity facilitated by the ease of checking things out? Is it related to the social media addiction I wrote about before? What would you do?
Do things shift when you move into the enterprise? What should your company do? Does company security and compliance issues warrant looking at employee emails?
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Adam DJune 7th, 2010 at 10:49 am |
To reply to your closing questions, I think it might be an ease-of-access temptation. I’m curious as to how many of the study thought that spying through tech was too much of a violation of trust to commit. (That is, snooping on unfounded suspicion is something that I wouldn’t do to my girlfriend. If I suspected her, it’s vastly more justified.) Who of that 10% under 25 suspected their significant other, or found out simply by browsing their texts?
In the enterprise, I feel that similar discretion should be used. Trust your employees, but if there are lapses in judgment or commitment, take a look. If they’re using their work time to converse, or to job search (!), you the organization would (IMO) have the right to attempt to find out.
Adam
Personal and Company Digital Spying http://bit.ly/cq1XKD
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Personal and Company Digital Spying: They discovered that 38% those under 25, in a dating relationship have “snoop… http://bit.ly/cfXyNg
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fast forward.. Personal and Company Digital Spying – I have been writing about some of the interesting Retreveo stu… http://ow.ly/17E6zQ
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