Text Message Snooping Can Break Up Relationships: Survey
Posted August 28, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Ever leave your cell phone in another room when you’re in the shower or working in the basement somewhere? If you do, listen up: your significant other may be scanning your text messages and they may not like what they see.
An Australian survey shows 60 per cent of nearly 500 mobile phone users between the ages of 18 and 29 admitted they checked out their spouse’s or partner’s messages while they were separated from their phones.
If that’s not enough of an invasion of privacy, consider this: 73 per cent confessed they’d discovered things they’d much rather they didn’t know. And 10 per cent actually ended their relationship with the person because of what they’d seen.
It’s just the latest hazard of modern technology and something else you’ll have to get used to in an increasingly complicated high tech world.
Experts warn that it’s easy to misinterpret a text message, because – like email – it comes with no context. Some people say they found flirtatious messages embedded in the phones. Other discovered more blatantly graphic sexual material that couldn’t be mistaken.
And where does all this happen? Sixty per cent say they stole a quick glance while the phone owner was in the shower. And 41 per cent were daring enough to do it when the person was in the next room. Nearly 45 per cent say they found something raunchy in a place where it shouldn’t be.
“Flirting is age old, but the fact that it can now be tracked on your phone makes a nervous partner a paranoid text-checker,” survey taker Virgin Mobile quoted author and relationship expert Samantha Brett as saying.
Her advice? Don’t give in to the temptation of sneaking a peek. If in doubt, talk to your partner and work it out. What you don’t know can’t hurt either of you.
And one more thing: either delete any suspect texts or don’t leave your cell phone lying around. Because you never know who’s checking your messages.
