One-Third of Relationships Have a Digi-Snoop, and Ladies Are the Worst

According to a new study from the London School of Economics, the University of Oxford, and Nottingham Trent University, you're all a bunch of snoops. The three schools surveyed 1,000 married British couples and found that in one-third of the relationships, at least one partner admitted to having spied on their spouse's electronic activities. One fifth of respondents had read their partner's e-mail or text messages with out their knowledge, and the same amount also admitted to checking browser history.

Women who responded were almost twice as likely as their male counterparts to have engaged in some form of digital espionage. In 10-percent of couples, both parties admitted to checking the other's e-mail, with an additional 8-percent of men and 14-percent of women saying they had done so in previous relationships. Numbers for text message spies were roughly the same, with 13-percent of women and 7-percent of men picking up their partner's cell phone, and in another 10-percent of couples both admitted to being completely untrusting (and untrustworthy). In fact, 1-percent of both men and women admitted to using monitoring software or contacting their partner online while posing as someone else.

Ellen Helsper, who led the study, told the Telegraph that, "Our findings showed that there are surprisingly high levels of surveillance... [it] was wider spread than we initially assumed." Whatever the reason for the spying, the numbers are disturbing. We're not comfortable with any invasion of privacy, even if it's our significant other doing the snooping.

[From: Telegraph]