So maybe Valentine’s Day didn’t work out so well for you. Your break-up could be more complicated than you’d think. Breaking up used to just mean giving back your key but now, thanks to the hi-tech world we live in, you have think about your music, photos, videos, passwords. So how do you walk away with your fair-share of the shared technology?
“Technology just makes it more in your face about this person you just lost. There’s so many more reminders that you have. It could be the password that you use with your login somewhere it could be the pictures on your cell phone,” said George James.
The first step? “Change your passwords, change all of them, stuff you have on line, bank acts, credit acts, eBay, even E-mails if you share the same E-mail address.” Next, Duca says an external hard drive is a girl’s best friend if you need to get custody of your music library, “You have your hard drive, you can plug it into any computer that supports it and you should be able to access your files from there.”
He’s a therapist with the Council for Relationships. He says this high-tech age complicates break-ups. “The difficult thing is that you go maybe 2-3 months and you forgot one password and that brings you right back to the loss,” said James.Ryan Duca is a Geek Squad Double Agent and yes, he’s actually been called to action to help with a tech break-up. “If something were to ever happen in your relationship we gotta figure out a way where we can split that technology cleanly,” said Duca.
What about your pictures? Before you Photoshop him out, back them up said Duca, “Pictures would be better on a CD as they are smaller files than the music.” Here’s the real heartbreak. Now you realize all your favorite shows are still stuck on his TIVO.
Now what? If you were to get kicked out at 3 o’clock in the morning and you missed the American Idol results show from this week, there are ways to get that,” Duca explained, “Tivo has software that you can install on your computer allow you to transfer all the videos from the Tivo to your computer.”
The other big change you may face, is on Facebook and MySpace. A change your ‘relationship status’ on your profile is automatically announced to all your friends. The other complication comes if you share an eBay account that means one of you is going to lose your strong seller rating.
By Michelle Williams, FOX29 News Reporter
If you’re reading this, you’re all set, partner!