Research brief : early adolescents' perceptions of the motivations and consequences of sharing passwords with friends in Belgium

Abstract: Despite indications that password sharing is prevalent among early adolescents, limited empirical research has sought to understand why young teenagers share their passwords with others. This exploratory study aims to address this research gap by investigating early adolescents’ perceptions of the motivations and consequences of sharing passwords with friends. In February and March 2020, we conducted nine focus groups with 51 participants (n = 24 boys, 47%; n = 27 girls, 53%). The participants were between 13 and 16 years old (Mage = 14.35; SDage = 0.74). The results indicate that pa... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Van Ouytsel, Joris
De Groote, Debra
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
Schlagwörter: Sociology / Mass communications
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27378258
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://hdl.handle.net/10067/1892920151162165141

Abstract: Despite indications that password sharing is prevalent among early adolescents, limited empirical research has sought to understand why young teenagers share their passwords with others. This exploratory study aims to address this research gap by investigating early adolescents’ perceptions of the motivations and consequences of sharing passwords with friends. In February and March 2020, we conducted nine focus groups with 51 participants (n = 24 boys, 47%; n = 27 girls, 53%). The participants were between 13 and 16 years old (Mage = 14.35; SDage = 0.74). The results indicate that password sharing is normative among adolescents. We identified five main motivations for sharing passwords. The results indicate that password sharing can either be a very deliberate behavior or occur rather spontaneously. The respondents perceived impersonation, hacking, and posting insulting content as the main negative outcomes of password sharing. The results of our exploratory study provide stepping stones for future theory-driven research and underscore the need for media literacy research to focus on practical technical skills as well as interpersonal skills to educate early adolescents about unsafe password sharing.