How many passwords do you have?

Not sure where it was originated, but I have certainly heard this theory both in China and in the U.S.: the number of keys we bring with us is a sign of how complex our life is. It does make sense, as a key indicates the existence of a lock/barrier, and the more barriers we have to overcome, the more complex our life is. Of course one can also look at it from a glass-half-full perspective; procession of keys also indicates we have control in these barriers in life. More keys usually mean more power and responsibility, unless you’re a locksmith.

The equivalent of keys in the cyber world is passwords. Nowadays a password (combined with a username) is required by many sites, even though there is no monetary transaction involved. You need a password to express your opinion in a forum, to get a journal/newspaper to send you their latest publication, and sometimes only registered users who manage to remember their password can read full coverage of a story.

Recently when preparing for my move, I in fact took a look at the file where I saved all my passwords. There are almost 50 of them! Still, this list only includes those I reckoned important enough to write down. I am sure there will be more if I had kept track of those I just used once or twice.

Surprised by my finding, I wonder if the same theory applies here: if a password is the counterpart of a key, do more passwords signal a more complex life???

It would be interesting to run a Freakeconomic analysis, testing the correlation between the number of password one has to use and the person’s socio-economic status. More interestingly, is there a correlation between the number and people’s happiness?

Any hypothesis?