A co-worker disappears into the bathroom, yet their Facebook wall magically updates. A friend tells you she can’t make it to your party because she’s not feeling well, yet her Twitter post raves about the new sushi restaurant downtown. It’s getting harder and harder to tell lies, even little white lies, when you are ‘lifecasting’. It’s also getting a lot harder to hide. People are TXTing from their mobile phones from just about every mobile location. They are telling everyone exactly what they are doing. But are they really?

Employing the 10 Ideas in 10 Minutes technique, I came up with ten things to consider (or conversely block from your mind) when you receive a text message (or IM, or Tweet).

1. Is this person driving a car? “Don’t Text and Drive!” will be the slogan for the next generation.
2. Is this person crossing the street? If so, they’re about to get hit by the texter from #1.
3. Is this person operating heavy machinery? I saw a road worker texting with one dirty, gloved hand through a clear plastic bag (to keep his phone clean). With his other hand he was distractedly pushing a giant, wet, screaming radial saw into hard concrete. We’ll see how long he has two hands.
4. Is this person standing at a urinal, or sitting on a toilet seat? It’s not like the bathroom germs can be transported via satellite, but it’s still a bit too intimate and disturbing. I suppose it’s still more polite than talking on the phone, which I’ve witnessed in a few men’s bathrooms.
5. Is this person drunk? Look for an increase in miss-spellings, as well as odd confessions , extra X’s and O’s, and <3′s.
6. Is this person high? Look for sentences that aren’t completed, words replaced by numbers, and strange shortened versions of common words.
7. Is this person getting lucky? If they are sexting you, that’s okay. But if they are conversing with you digitally while having sex with someone else, well that’s just wrong.
8. Is this person eating? Don’t text with your mouth full.
9. Is this person in a completely different emotional state than they are projecting? How tragic to be sending out little :-) when there might be tears streaming down his or her face.
10. Is this person standing somewhere nearby, watching you? Does that sound creepy? Because that’s what people used to do before mobile phones: stand near each other, look at each other, and talk out loud.