“My fiancé checks my text messages every chance he gets. He has also started to say that I have too many boys on my friends’ list on Facebook. When we first started to talk to each other even before we got engaged he was totally okay with my being friendly with male classmates and said that he wanted to give me space. It seems as soon as his ring was on my finger he transformed into a clingy, jealous boyfriend,” laments a 24-year-old girl who, for obvious reasons, prefers to remain anonymous.

It is a difficult time we live in. Although communication has ceased to be a problem any longer, what with your ability to continuously ‘stay connected’, it has become increasingly tedious in terms of a lack of privacy and the pressures youngsters have to ‘get in touch’. This scribe considers it a true test of your parental skills if you have young children and they remain on the straight and narrow or at least let you know of their indiscretions.

You cannot blame the youth; there are too many avenues and not enough hours in the day for guardians to keep an eye on their wards. The irony is that the same technological advantages they have these days are making it difficult for them to see through relationships that are farcical.

“One can go insane these days if one tries to follow around the people any one person communicates within a day. There are too many ways in which a person can get together with someone without your knowledge so the thing is that either you implicitly trust the person or you make yourself crazy trying to trace the tracks of that special person,” says Anushe.

“The last relationship I was in, ended really badly. Thank God for my instincts that I finally caught my boyfriend’s liaisons by asking a friend to hack into his Facebook account and to my astonishment he had been interacting with almost all his ex-girlfriends,” exclaims a university student.

“It’s not easy being a parent with teenage children. I feel like we should all take crash courses in the IT. Our generation has been left far behind when it comes to the new software and whatnot. I have to double check everything my children tell me, and it is so difficult to do so without going behind their backs and checking up on them. I usually lay down the rule that once in a while I will check their mobiles by asking them to hand it over. They may hate me for it but one needs to look over their shoulder and see exactly what’s going on the screen of their laptops,” explains a mother.

“I don’t have to resort to cheap tactics when it comes to my girlfriend. Firstly I trust her and secondly I belong to her generation which means whatever facilities are available to her are also at my fingertips. So she knows that if there is any hanky-panky on one side there will be the same on the other side,” is the solution one young man gives us to solve trust issues these days.

“I have no qualms in admitting that I often go through my hubby’s email, I insist that he give me his password. And I also check his cell phone. In the era that we live in, it is essential to do so. I trust my husband but I do not trust this world, it’s that simple,” states Mrs Jamshed.

Life cannot be lived wearing blinders like a race horse but it is also unadvisable to constantly worry if someone is going behind your back. Fact is no matter how nifty your detective skills a criminal can plan the perfect crime and get away with it right under your nose.