NetLingo Blog: Let's Talk Tech

When we send a text or an email, we imagine ourselves in a “protected and anonymous” cocoon, says Frank Bruni of The New York Times.

"You’d think by now it would be screamingly obvious that “there’s no true, dependable privacy when we’re tapping or typing,” said Frank Bruni. Yet Gen. David Petraeus—like Rep. Anthony Weiner, Tiger Woods, and so many others before them—has fallen prey to “the greatest contradiction of contemporary life: how safe we feel at our touchpads and keyboards” versus “how exposed and imperiled we really are.” When we send a text or an email, we imagine ourselves in a “protected and anonymous” cocoon. No one seems to be watching, so “with a reckless velocity,” we express anger, share gossip and criticism, or indulge in flirtations and sex talk we’d never put into words in person or even on the phone. Who hasn’t said something in an email about a friend, colleague, or boss that, if revealed to the world, would cause great embarrassment—or even the loss of a job or a marriage? We succumb to this temptation for the same reason Petraeus and the other fallen stars did: “That glowing and treacherous screen in front of you is somehow the greenest light of all.”