Daily Dose of Common Sense

If you’ve heard anything about Tiger Woods’ drama the past few days (and, really, who hasn’t?), you now know that your text messages can haunt you. For example, if you’re cheating on a partner, your text messages could be used against you.

The New York Times has an article about how text messages are the “new lipstick on the collar.”

Unlike earlier eras when a dalliance might be suspected but not confirmed, nowadays text messages provide proof. Divorce lawyers say they have seen an increase in cases in the past year where a wronged spouse has offered text messages to show that a partner has strayed. The American Bar Association began offering seminars this fall for marital attorneys on how to use electronic evidence–text messages, browsing history and social networks–in proving a case.

Seriously, who is so naive as to think texts are private? Perhaps they should be. But, in our digital world, privacy can be difficult to maintain. Emails can be found after deleting them. So, even if someone isn’t peeping into your phone’s in-and-out box:

…messages can remain on the sender’s and receiver’s phones, and even if they are deleted, communications companies store them for anywhere from days to a few weeks. AT&T said that, at most, it saved text messages for 72 hours while Verizon said it saved them for 5 to 10 days.

Text away! Just be prepared to live with the consequences.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.