The Perils of Digital Snooping

And while we can’t expect it from grope-happy TSA officers, everyone should be able to demand a certain level from family and friends. So let’s start with this week’s most obvious shining bauble of a takeaway point: Don’t snoop.

A few decades ago, snooping had pretty clear-cut definitions: jimmying open the lock on Sally’s diary and reading about her awkward fumblings with Billy, listening behind a closed door with a tumbler pressed against the wood, or slicing open a neighbor’s mail. (We soon learned this last one is illegal, meaning that 10-year-olds still freeze in abject fear whenever they realize they’ve accidentally ripped open their sister’s card and brace themselves for policemen to swing in through the windows, handcuffs at the ready.)

Nowadays, accidental espionage is the norm. You grab your girlfriend’s phone to check the time — and bam, there’s a text from her ex-boyfriend. You crack open your daughter’s laptop to show her a Flickr album — kapow, there’s her friends-only Blogspot in fully accessible glory. You surf to Gmail the day after your friend used your computer, and hello, friend’s inbox.

And if you do suspect bad behavior, e-investigation is almost too easy. Like it or not, from time to time your eye will fall on something that’s not meant for you, and when that happens you’re a big fat privacy invader.

In fact, a recent British survey found that 14% of wives spy on their hubbies’ e-mails, 13% read his texts and 10 percent check his Web-surfing history. (The same survey found that about half as many men keep up the same spousal spying). An Australian survey found that 73% of those who check their partners’ texts found out things they later wished they hadn’t.

So hang on, snoopy. You can minimize the damage both to your own conscience and to your relationship by following our three rules of digital snooping.

And so begins my Netiquette column — which I write with my Stuff Hipsters Hate co-blogger, Andrea Bartz — this week over at CNN.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ThomasTroy

More About: cnn, netiquette, social media, Stuff Hipsters Hate

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