Abstract
Password managers, though commonly recommended by security experts, are still not used by many users. Understanding why some choose to use password managers while others do not is important towards generally understanding why some users do what they do and, by extension, designing motivational tools such as video tutorials to help motivate more to use password managers. To investigate differences between those who do and do not use a password manager, for this paper, we distributed an online survey to a total of 137 users and 111 non-users of the tool that asked about their opinions/experiences with password managers. Furthermore, since emotion has been identified by work in psychology and communications as influential in other risk-laden decision-making (e.g., safe-sex behavior such as condom use), we asked participants who use a password manager to rate how they feel for 45 different emotions, or, as the case for those who do not use a password manager, to rate how they imagine they would feel the 45 emotions if they did use the tool. Our results show that “users” of password managers noted convenience and usefulness as the main reasons behind using the tool, rather than security gains, underscoring the fact that even a large portion of users of the tool are not considering security as the primary benefit while making the decision. On the other hand, “non-users” noted security concerns as the main reason for not using a password manager, highlighting the prevalence of suspicion arising from lack of understanding of the technology itself. Finally, analysis of the differences in emotions between “users” and “non-users” reveals that participants who never use a password manager are more likely to feel suspicious compared to “users,” which could be due to misunderstandings about the tool.
Highlights
The proliferation of online services has drastically increased the number of passwords an individual user is required to remember to access different online accounts
Our study considers several variables: concern regarding computer security, user’s online behavior and attitudes, attitude towards password managers, reasons for using or not using a password manager, emotions elicited by the usage of password managers for users, and emotions elicited by anticipated usage of password managers for non-users
Differences in computer proficiency between “users” and “non‐users” Based on our data, we found that male participants adopt password managers more than female participants (χ2 = 6.25, df = 1, p = 0.012)
Summary
The proliferation of online services has drastically increased the number of passwords an individual user is required to remember to access different online accounts. An average user is estimated to have 25 distinct online accounts [1], each with a password to manage and remember. While creating unique and strong passwords for each online account and never recycling from service to service is essential for security, the cognitive burden of remembering so many unique and complex passwords is becoming. Password managers are often recommended by security experts as a convenient solution [2] that can help users pick passwords (i.e., with unique, random generation features) and store them securely in an encrypted form without requiring users to remember all of their passwords
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