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Intimacy 139Similarly, youth are able to maintain relationships with people of whomtheir parents might not approve, much like Jesse and Alice, because of thisprivacy. However, given the expectations of high contact with other teensand the amount of personal information in a semipublic realm, teens alsohave to negotiate new boundaries and spheres of privacy in their intimaterelationships (Livingstone 2008). In this sense, social media carve out anew private realm in which teens can communicate, largely outside thepurview of adults, while simultaneously redrawing and often weakeningboundaries around their personal spheres of privacy.Monitoring and BoundariesFrom investigating crushes, to being in contact with significant others, toenduring breakups, the aspects of digital media that let teens be constantlyin touch also allow them to monitor one another more intently. Thismonitoring varies from researching potential love interests to using ashared password to check up on one’s significant other to attempting torestrict one’s significant other’s communications with his or her friends.Some youth regularly check on their significant other’s websites simply tosee what they are up to. Gabriella, a Latina fifteen-year-old from LosAngeles, logged on to her boyfriend’s profile daily as part of her routineafter she logged on to her own, “just to check” (boyd, Teen Sociality inNetworked Publics). Similarly, Samantha, a white eighteen-year-old fromSeattle, admitted, “I have done some checking up [on my boyfriend]”(boyd, Teen Sociality in Networked Publics). This sort of “checking” behaviorhappens when one has a crush, when one is monitoring one’s romanticpartner, and sometimes after a breakup.The importance of passwords to one’s online presence is central to thesemonitoring practices. Sharing a password both denotes intimacy andallows a significant other to monitor the private portions and manipulatethe public parts of a social network profile. For some couples, such asClarissa and her girlfriend, Genevre, white seventeen-year-olds in northernCalifornia, sharing a password feels like a way to maintain a connectioneven when they are apart. In fact, as Clarissa logged on to her MySpaceprofile she laughed, seeing that her girlfriend had updated it andaltered the background to a more attractive one. However, not all teensfeel comfortable with the amount of power a significant other wieldswith the password. Derrick, the Dominican American sixteen-year-old