Oh No. Did I Just Send That Message?

By: Barbara Greenberg, PhD, GalTime.com Teen Parenting Expert

Yes, we all know about the problems associated with cyber-bullying. I remember 7th grade when I took a different route home after school to avoid Nancy C. who followed me home throughout that dreadful year.   Apparently, she just didn’t like me and my green hat. I suppose that if we had the Internet then she would have sent me messages via Internet and ruined 7th grade that way. She would have been a fan of cyber-bullying and I would have been her hapless target.                   

Well, I believe that we have a problem that is not quite as destructive as cyber-bullying, but nonetheless deserves discussion. I am referring to other errors that occur by using technology to communicate even though they are significantly less destructive.                

My favorite personal example is when I intended to send a text message to my teenage daughter to say, “ I love you.” You guessed correctly. I accidently sent it to a male co-worker. I was wondering why he was smiling at me both strangely and knowingly for the next several days. He acted like we had a joint secret except that I had no idea what it was. In this case, I was thankful for gossip. He shared with another co-worker that I could no longer contain my feelings toward him.

To make a long story short, I did explain the mistake to him, but to this day I still think that he believes that I have a secret crush on him.

With all due respect and with complete confidence, I can assure you of two things. The first is that I do love my daughter and the second is that while I respect my co-worker he is not the apple of my eye.

Let me share a few more examples of these cyber-bloopers.

1.    A teenage boy invites the wrong girl on a date via text. She says yes and he doesn’t know what to do.
2.    A friend hits reply to all and sends a message intended for one person to several others and yes you are correct if you guessed that she said some not so nice things about one of the recipients.
3.    We’ve all heard several versions of this story. A teenager announces a party on Facebook and it goes viral. The party is quite well-attended and the kid is in over his/her head so to speak.