One of the most basic things you need to consider when doing business online is that the World Wide Web is an open arena with no established security. Once you have learned to appreciate that the inte ... [Read more]
A new poll shows that people don’t really enjoy thinking of new passwords for their favorite websites. It’s not surprising information until you consider the tasks that respondents preferred over a quick update on a login screen.38 percent of participants in a poll from Harris Interactive indicated that they would rather handle household chores–including cleaning toilets and doing the laundry–rather than create a new user or name or password.
The same percentage of respondents also thought that attempting to solve world peace would be easier than dealing with new login credentials.Many respondents probably answered that second question with their tongues firmly in their cheeks, but there’s no question that Internet users dislike the idea of switching passwords.
Harris Interactive found that the average number of passwords per person was 6.7 for the 18-34 age group and 8 for older Internet users. Nearly 3 in 5 adults had 5 or more unique online passwords.Among the study’s other key findings:
- 30 percent of adults had more than 10 passwords.
- 8 percent of respondents had 21 or more passwords.
- 2 out of 5 respondents asked for automated username or password assistance at least once per month after forgetting login credentials.
- 84 percent of people disliked being asked to register on a website and 44 percent found online registration forms to be too long on average.
With only 2,200 participants and some dubious question language choice, the poll probably isn’t entirely representative of Internet users as a whole. The poll was commissioned by a software-as-a-service company called Janrain, and the company’s official press release notes that the survey is not intended as a probability sample.With that being said, it’s still fun to see how people think of password security as an insurmountable, time-consuming task. Most analysts recommend changing passwords at least once every few months, but that might be a hard sell for the average Internet user.
