Texting in the nude

You almost bare it all when you text message. Did you know that? While a huge majority of text messages are sent as, ":)", "i luv u girl!", "lol ok", or even as harmless as "hey what's up?", not all of them are so innocent. I mean c'mon, let's face it, we have all typed up very personal text messages to friends, family, and spouses. You may not realize it, but text messages really aren't as private as you think they are.

Think about it for a second. How many messages do you send or receive that you wouldn't want anybody but yourself seeing? Hmm? And how often does that occur? I'm sure everybody is different, but we need to face the reality of text messaging and the content therein. Text messages are becoming easier and easier to type. With clever phones equiped with full qwerty keyboards we can text entire emails on them. So if an email is treated with privacy in mind, don't you think a text message should? Just what am I getting at?

Simple. Text messages don't require a login. They don't require a password. So if you aren't locking your phone, just about anybody could browse through them. Text privacy is severely overlooked. How many times has your friend or family borrowed your phone to make a phone call? How many times have you swapped phones to check out the cool features? How many times have you lent your phone to somebody so they could call you, or vice versa? How many times did you leave your phone at your desk or on the table when you had to use the restroom? Have you ever lost your phone? With all of the scenarios considered, do you see where i'm going with this?

A buddy of mine bought a new phone and I was checking out the features. Un-be-knownst to me, there were private text messages in his box. Font sizes on phones are generally squished down to fit an entire paragraph on the message preview. So without even trying, I got a big dose of personal reality, and none of it was my business. But who really thinks about these things? It's not until later you realize, "Oh shit... I let him use my phone and I was texting his girlfriend about bra size last night!"

Not only do you have to worry about your own phone, you start to give second-thought to texting somebody else. You never know if they will leave their phone somewhere or let the wrong person borrow it, only to stumble upon a private text message you sent. It's just too easy to access information these days.

And I don't think anybody is paying attention.