The Cost of Snooping: How Reading Others’ Personal Correspondences Divides Attention

Abstract

Given the prevalence of public use of devices to send private messages, these messages are prone to be snooped upon by others. Advances in technology have raised privacy concerns, however, little is known about what is typically sought after and the characteristics of those more likely to snoop. People are socially curious and drawn to gossip, suggesting that personal information that is dramatic or salacious may be more tempting for individuals to access when given the opportunity. In addition, certain personality characteristics relate to negative behaviors online, however, it is unknown what individual differences are related to snooping behaviors. Therefore, we designed novel studies in which participants watched videos where pop-up text message notifications, supposedly for the researcher, appeared. Using eye-tracking, we assessed what factors led to fixation on these fake texts. Results showed participants were more likely to fixate on gossipy texts during passive videos (Z = 303.50, p = .01, d = 0.48), and higher conscientiousness was related to lower snooping, r(26) = –.50, p = .01, 95% CI [–.78, –.22]. Further, individual fear of missing out predicted higher fixation only of gossipy texts, r(22) = .55, p = .01, 95% CI [.15, .79], but independent of text type, greater fixation to texts led to divided attention and poorer memory of video content, r(46) = –.50, p < .001, 95% CI [–.73, –.33]. Together, data suggest that there are costs to private information being made public, both to the individual whose information is on display and the snooper.