What is your opinion on this scenario (details inside)?

Tricky question, on one hand they did solve her problem , on the other they should have respected her privacy, I’m going to play Switzerland and be neutral on this one, sorry :)

Without details and context we cannot answer. If she was suicidal or something was serious I’ll side with friends on this.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Well, let’s say that’s something semi-serious then. It affects her relationship with one of the friends.

The girl’s friends should not have read the her diary. Nonetheless, If they truly came across it by accident, the girl bears some responsibility because she had not hidden it securely enough, suggesting to me at least that perhaps she subconsciously wanted to share her problem.

Reading a diary without permission is an invasion of privacy.

The ends don’t justify the means.

The friends ability to help her was not known prior to them reading her diary. The girl is rightly feeling violated. The friends were wrong.

Agree. If you commit a wrong to, in your mind fix a problem, you’ve just changed the focus of the problem.

Just because the problem was solved doesn’t automatically cancel out that the friends violated her trust.

Once trust has been broken, it’s very difficult to restore.

Regardless of where the diary was, everyone knows that reading it is a violation of privacy. It’s totally understandable why she feels betrayed. The relationship has been damaged seriously and they need to acknowledge this (rather than excusing it because the problem got solved).

Until they take responsibility for their behavior there is no reason for her to feel the same level of trust as before.

It really still depends. If a loved one is acting out of sorts then a peek into the diary may be justified. ln general for things that are not actually serious ( life threatening) it’s not justified. The situation you mention seems to be more like a boyfriend cheating or something. Not justified in that case

Reading someone’s diary is completely inexcusable. I would be pissed off too.

The friends were wrong to read the diary. My mom told me when I was a little girl don’t write anything down that you don’t want other people to read. So true.

Hopefully, the girl learned a lesson in communication and that sometimes asking for help or talking about a problem can be helpful.

What would you do if you see your friend suffering? You will try to help no matter what, so the friends did it. They acted and did something which also should be appreciated. Choosing between the friends from this story and friends who do nothing to help me out I’d choose the first.

Thanks everyone for the responses. The question was added to aid a project of mine. I need some opinions for references. GAs for you all!

There is no equivocation here: it was wrong to read the diary of “a friend”. If I find a diary or journal in the street and read it out of simple or prurient interest or to discover whose it is, then that is one thing, and can hardly be objected with. However, if I find my friend’s diary in the street, then it is off limits to me as soon as I learn whose it is – and I should also disclose to her, when I return it, exactly what I have seen. Absolutely. Completely. No “except” or “but” or other qualification.

And if I find it in her room or in her house, then reading it is a gross violation of privacy, which can hardly be excused unless the circumstances are extremely dire: she’s in a coma because of some unknown drug she took; she’s been kidnapped by someone she met and wrote about, or she has already killed herself.