Part 1 of 5
Why do so many of us hide our lives inside our passwords?
Because a password is typed so often that it becomes a place to keep something.
In a 2019 study, the New Zealand memory researchers Robbie Taylor and Maryanne Garry asked people about their passwords and found that about half had used memories from their own lives: the street they grew up on, a pet’s name, a year that mattered.
The memories did more than help people log in. People said these passwords held on to who they are, kept other people close, and pushed them toward what they wanted to do, and many had chosen the password precisely so they would remember. Nearly one in ten put in something that hadn’t happened yet: a hope or a plan. As the researchers concluded, “some people might use passwords as mementos.”