If the same bed, bathroom, home, and entire physical world is shared, what makes sharing cyber-world so different? Relationships start out as a result of an agreement between people who have committed to sharing their lives. One would expect that such agreement to love, trust and be with one another grants free access to everything associated with the other person, but this is not always the case. Technology has drastically changed the traditional form of communication from face-to-face to e-communication. People prefer to text, talk on the phone, use social media e.t.c. Therefore, a whole new world of human interaction has been created, however we personalize, privatize, and separate it from our regular daily lives. This is a big issue for couples in terms of trust and transparency.
What is privacy in a relationship? It varies depending on people’s personal preferences, relationship status, and defined boundaries. Cyber-world is a place where it is possible for anyone to disguise to be any and everything they are not in real life. It is a world where a person claims personal control over what they do and tend to feel safe and free to do anything without a partner’s intrusion. It becomes easy to cheat on a partner virtually and helps a person to make up excuses of not physically doing anything wrong. It limits transparency in relationships.
Most couples have set spoken or unspoken boundaries of not sharing passwords to phones, Facebook, emails and other technology related information. Many have argued that, granting full access to technology related information can potentially ruin a relationship while others argue that it helps to promote transparency and trust.
As previously stated, privacy in relationships vary depending on the relationship status. Some relationships do have full rights and privileges. For example, a not so serious relationship has a lot of boundaries which may include only having each other’s phone numbers to communicate, with very limited access to other aspects of one another’s lives. People in such relationships have no right or access to each other’s cyber-world unless their relationship status changes. On the other hand, a committed relationship or marriage with two people who have agreed to be one or share their lives together might have more privileges with free access to each other’s world. However, restrictions are strongly placed on sharing cyber-world. Should this be acceptable in committed relationships? To establish complete trust, it is essential for couples to define their relationships’ privacy terms with regards to sharing cyber-world.
Related Post: How Technology Ruins Relationships- http://www.cosmopolitan.com/cosmo-latina/how-technology-ruins-relationships
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