NYT Calls Sexts “Digital Lipstick on the Collar”

Yeah, with the ability of the lipstick-wearer to forward the sullied collar to the aggrieved wife or girlfriend. The simple answer to the question of why anyone sneaking around would put themselves at risk by sending sexually explicit texts to their lover is easy to answer: tech ignorance.

Although most e-mail users have come to understand that messages remain on their computers even if deleted, text messages are often regarded as more ephemeral — type, hit “send” and off it goes into the ether. But 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.

Duh! So these folks are either of a generation that is older (Senator John Ensign, Tiger Woods) and therefore is befuddled by new-fangled technology, or of a younger tech-savvy generation who however may not as yet possess the maturity or presence of mind to consider the potential consequences of their sexting actions.

More interesting in the article is research about people’s relationships to their cellphones. MIT professor Sherry Turkle says that unlike with computers, consumers have a deeply personal connection to their cellphones, where they keep contact lists and family photos.

They carry them in their pockets, next to their skin…People feel it is an extension of their body and mind. Like Peter Pan, we do not see our electronic shadow until it is pointed out to us. We assume it is not there.

Text Messages: Digital Lipstick on the Collar