Women may struggle with handling the latest technology more often than men — but not when it comes to using it to spy on their husbands, researchers have found.
A study of middle-aged couples found that 14% of wives spy on their husband’s emails, 13% read their mobile phone text messages and 10% check web browser logs.
This is roughly twice the level of spousal spying that is found among men.
Women are also far better at it than men, the researchers found. It appears that some women develop their IT skills simply to improve their surveillance techniques.
“One of the surprising findings was that spousal surveillance was undertaken more often by wives than husbands,” said Ellen Helsper and Monica Whitty of Nottingham Trent University, who co- authored the research.
“This contrasts with general research that suggests that women are less technologically skilled than men.”
“It seems that they are able to overcome these barriers when they feel that their relationship is at stake.”
The researchers wanted to analyze how the internet was affecting long-term relationships and whether couples used it to spy on each other. They questioned 920 couples with an average age of 49 who had typically been married for about two decades.
The study found that only 8% of men read their wives’ emails, and 6%-7% of men checked texts and web browser history.
The researchers added: “The findings show that wives were indeed more likely to monitor their husbands’ behavior.”
