Shared accounts:
- 27% of internet users in a marriage or committed relationship have an email account that they share with their partner. Older adults and those who have been in their relationship for longer than ten years are especially likely to share an email account.
- 11% of these couples have an online calendar that they share. Sharing of online calendars tends to be most prevalent among couples in their logistics-intensive middle-age period (i.e. mid-20s through mid-40s).
- 11% of partnered or married adults who use social networking sites share a social media profile.
As a broad pattern, those who have been married or partnered ten years or less have digital communication and sharing habits that differ substantially from those who have been partnered longer. Some of this is about timing — technology a decade ago was squarely in the pre-Facebook, pre-smartphone era, and just ten years into the development of the commercially popular Web. Those who were already together as a couple at the advent of a new platform or technology were a bit more likely to jump on together, as a unit, while those who begin relationships with their own existing accounts and profiles tend to continue to use them separately as individuals.
Long-term couples tend to view and utilize technology quite differently compared with those who have been together for a shorter period of time
Couples who have been together for 10 years or less show different patterns of technology usage in the context of their relationship compared with those who have been together for a longer period of time. Couples who have been together for a decade or less — also typically younger than those who have been together for longer — are much more likely to have used dating services or the internet to meet their partner, to use technology to help with the logistics and communication in their relationship, and to report that the internet had an impact on their relationship. Adults who are long-partnered use technology in their relationship, but are more likely to use some of it together — by sharing email addresses and social media profiles as a couple.
Sexting among adults is up since 2012
Technology in relationships is not just limited to coordination and logistics, it now encompasses even the more intimate moments. Sexting, or sending sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photos and videos via cell phone, is practiced by couples and singles alike.
- 9% of adult cell owners have sent a sext of themselves to someone else, up from 6% of cell owners who said this in 2012.
- 20% of cell owners have received a sext of someone else they know on their phone, up from 15% who said this in 2012.
- 3% of cell owners have forwarded a sext to someone else – unchanged since 2012.
- Married and partnered adults are just as likely as those not in a relationship to say they have sent sexts; single adults are more likely to report receiving and forwarding such images or videos.
About this survey
This report is based on the findings of a survey on Americans' use of the internet. The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from April 17 to May 19, 2013, among a sample of 2,252 adults, age 18 and older. Telephone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish by landline (1,125) and cell phone (1,127, including 571 without a landline phone). For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. For results based on married or partnered adults, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points and for cell phone owners the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
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