
Nearly half of young people say tracking partners using technology is acceptable - greenyoda
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/24/nearly-half-of-young-people-say-tracking-partners-using-technology-is-acceptable
======
SmellyGeekBoy
I leave my phone lying around, no security on it whatsoever, leave Facebook,
my email, everything logged in on my laptop. My partner of 15 years (lived
together for 7) is the same. We're in our early 30s.

I certainly have never had the urge to go through her stuff and I don't
believe (although to be fair it's not something we've discussed) she's ever
looked at mine either. As well as being a couple we're both individuals with
our own lives and dealings and interests, and to be breathing down each
others' necks 24/7 would imply a massive lack of trust. I genuinely don't get
why being in a relationship should mean giving up privacy and personal space -
it seems incredibly unhealthy to me.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
My wife and I are the same way.

Giving up privacy and personal space in a relationship IS unhealthy.

To feel that one has a right to search through one's spouses belongings is a
sign of immaturity and insecurity. There's no way to have a healthy meaningful
relationship with someone when one feels that way.

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peteretep

        > believe tracking their partner by going through their
        > computer or phone, or by installing phone and
        > computer tracking software
    

One of those things is not like the others. Many of the married couples I know
have "Find My Friends" on their phone for them and their partners,
consensually, and it's exceptionally useful for short-term planning. This does
not feel anything like going through their emails...

~~~
asuffield
Also, how many couples actually keep their email secret from each other? How
many would have no expectation of privacy here, and hence view the subject
differently?

~~~
Squarel
My BF knows my email address, and I know his, but going through each others
computers/phones/whatever is a big nope.

~~~
executesorder66
Going through anyone's things (digital or physical) without their permission
is obviously very wrong. But can I ask you what kinds of things you have on
your computer/phone that you don't want you BF to see?

Edit: My girlfriend and I have permission from each other to go through each
other's phones/computers etc. and as a result of that we don't feel like the
other person has anything to hide, and it brings us closer to each other. I
have no interest in going through my girlfriend's phone/laptop, but if she
refused to let me do that it would instantly bring up red flags that she
doesn't trust me and that she can't be open with me. That's not the kind of
relationship I'd like to be in.

~~~
mattlutze
Nothing or everything, what is there shouldn't be a/the question.

Humans have a rare trait in being able to develop cyborg transparent
interfaces with our tools. A hammer becomes your hand, as far as your brain is
concerned, after you've used it long enough.

Phones and other technology do the same thing for our minds. The photos we
snap but never review are memories we're trying to collect. Phone calls or IMs
a better history of conversations we've had.

Someone else going through this technology w/o permission is like them having
a way to psychically read your mind. Both are a violation of your self -- your
identity, memories, what have you. It's a violation because just as we learn
to use tools as physically indistinct appendages, so to do we use ways to
capture our minds as indistinct appendages.

------
toothbrush
Humans are awful, and we're still in the stone age as far as social
advancements go. News at 11. :( (bearing in mind that the article also talks
about shockingly high numbers of respondents classifying rape and domestic
violence as “acceptable,” for those who haven't read The Fine Article)

 _“In August the Victorian government announced religious instruction during
school hours would be scrapped and replaced with education about building
respectful relationships.”_

That's about the only positive take-away from the article. All ministers
responsible for education everywhere should follow suit.

EDIT: using punctuation is hard, man.

~~~
smorrow
You sure we're not _behind_ the Stone Age? The mainstream paleoanthropological
position is that hunter-gatherers were completely egalitarian socially.
Inequality is something that came up (resurfaced actually, because apes have
it) only in the last 10-12 thousand years as a result of owning property and
land and some people owning more of it than others.

Again, this is not my theory, this is what anthropologists actually believe.

In the interest of giving both sides, there's a recent book, that I haven't
read (yet), called _Constant Battles_ , which disputes all of that.

Also: giving classes on this kind of thing solves nothing; see below.

Also: the upside of Religious Education is that it was practically a free
period, at least where I'm from.

------
spatulan
Why is that the headline when the article contains the much more worrying

"And 20% of those surveyed said women often said “no” to sexual activity when
they meant “yes”, and 18% agreed if a woman was raped while affected by
alcohol or drugs she was partly responsible."

~~~
anon4
"partly responsible" is a highly context-dependent weasel word. You can be
"partly responsible" for a brick hitting you on the head, since you didn't
look up. You can be "partly responsible" for being raped while drunk, because
you chose to get wasted in unsafe company. Your parents are also "partly
responsible", because they raised you in a neighbourhood with a high number of
violent young men. The bar is, indeed, also "partly responsible", for not
hiring competent bouncers to prevent this situation. And so on and so forth
until we get to the Big Bang, which is also partly responsible, because it set
up the initial conditions which evolved to the current predicament. In short,
"partly responsible" can mean whatever the hell you want it to mean, and you
can get most people to answer whatever you want to that question by first
priming them with other questions.

~~~
tbrownaw
_You can be "partly responsible" for a brick hitting you on the head, since
you didn't look up._

Or because you were in a marked hardhat zone without a hardhat.

Designing properly ambiguous wording for surveys must be a lot of fun.

------
UserRights
There are some arguments here that go like "oh, how wrong and stupid people
are" \- but you have to turn it around to understand the situation. These
young people are living in a modern surveillance society and they are learning
their whole life that surveillance is normal - of course they adapt to their
environment.

The "immature" mindset they develop is of course a mirror of the deep
misantropic, paranoid and life-disrespecting mindset produced by the Leaders
of Your Society (TM), that serves only the war industry, but creates more and
more distrust, chaos and destruction everywhere on this planet - for some this
might be a welcomed result.

This is an interesting study and our generation can learn a lot from it. It
also shows why it is so dangerous to establish surveillance and control
technologies everywhere like we do nowadays - kids will always do what their
parents did.

~~~
LLWM
Conversely, you old people grew up in a disconnected, technologically
backwards society and you've learned your whole lives that electronic
communication is something to be feared.

The simpsons has a famous quote for people like you.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdozkeNqNQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdozkeNqNQk)

~~~
UserRights
Sorry, you missed the topic here - it is about surveillance and control and
abuse of powers. Nice try to put it "fear of technology" \- too obvious and
simplistic.

------
jmadsen
Honestly - When I see these attitudes from 16-24 year-olds, I simply think,
"Uneducated about reality, as you would expect at that age"

I don't necessarily "worry" about it as much as hold it up as proof that this
stuff needs to be taught in the schools or where ever most effective.

~~~
s_kilk
Yeah, "young people" are dumbasses, but for some reason we give much credance
to their survey answers.

~~~
Shivetya
you can be sure some politician will try to capitalize on it.

the question I have is, where do they get the idea that this is acceptable?
What are they teaching in schools?

~~~
smtddr
I think acceptable is the default for most behaviors. Give into whatever urge
you have, etc. It's age/experience that eventually labels things as
unacceptable.

~~~
s_kilk
Pretty much. They've yet to live in the real world, experience things and gain
insight into how things work. Unless they've a good reason to believe
otherwise most things will be 'acceptable' by default.

I'm sure you could poll a cohort of <21s to tell you that thermonuclear
obliteration is 'acceptable', if only because they've never actually thought
about it or the consequences. That result wouldn't tell us the world at large
is heading straight for nuclear war, it tells us our respondents are morons.

------
asuffield
What were the actual survey questions asked? This sort of thing is very
sensitive to how you phrase the question.

~~~
mrweasel
It should also be followed up by: "Would you be okay with your partner
tracking you, without your consent?"

The problem with tracking quickly becomes apparent when you're on the wrong
side of the fence. If a person honestly believe that it would be okay to track
their partner, but not vice-versa that person is an asshole.

~~~
vjoshi
Completely agree. My boyfriend and I share all of our passwords. We are
completely transparant with each others life and the trust is 100% there. He
scrolls through my phone and I his and we're on each others fbk quite a bit
to. But here's the difference. When I'm bored, I scroll through my phone to
see what's new.. usually nothing. So I do the same on his ... it's simply just
another source of entertainment (if you can even call it that, normally when
there's jack sht on tv).

If I'm meeting up with him, he'll send me his location on when he's being
super lazy just put on his tracker to make him easier to find. Sometimes .. he
leaves it on forgetting to switch it off and I tell him to as it'll drain his
battery. When you have trust, stuff like this doesn't come up in conversation
at all. It's more of a 'what's mine is yours and do whatever...' BUT yes,
tracking someone WITHOUT their consent, completely different story ... that's
NOT right. Defo needs to be rephrased.

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imgabe
This sounds more like a characteristic of immature people who haven't yet
learned how relationships work than a new technology trend.

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SCAQTony
Just wait till they have kids. I bet they will be called NSA parents!

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onion2k
It'd be more interesting to ask the inverse question - asking someone if they
think it's ok to track their partner could result in a very different answer
to asking if they believe it's ok for their partner to track them.

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mhb
How is this meaningful without knowing the survey questions or their context?
If asked in isolation, what percentage would say that it is acceptable for
their partner to track them?

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pjc50
Is that the male half? (Anyone got a link to the actual survey data?)

------
toredash
The other half does not think it is acceptable

