Almost one million Australians admit to snooping on partners’ mobile phones

A new survey from Virgin Mobile has revealed 900,000 Australians aged 18 to 29 have ‘fessed up to checking their partner’s phones, with one in three admitting to checking their partner’s text messages.

We are officially a nation of sticky beaks.

A new survey from Virgin Mobile has revealed 900,000 Australians aged 18 to 29 have ‘fessed up to checking their partner’s phones, with one in three admitting to checking their partner’s text messages.

And all this snooping doesn’t end well – more than 280,000 admit to having been being involved in a text-checking related break-up.

The most common places text checkers operate is while their partner is in the shower (59%), while in the same room (41%) or on the toilet (35%).

Amber Morris, PR manager at Virgin Mobile, says the company was amazed at the results of the survey.

“In a society when we very rarely let our mobile phones out of our sight, it’s quite amazing to think that for a lot of us the minute we jump in the shower, someone might be checking up on us,” Morris says.

Just over three quarters of text checkers do so in secret, and 73% of these secretive snoopers have found out things they later wished they hadn’t.

Over one in four text checkers have discovered flirtatious or sexual texts, ranging from harmless flirtation (32%) to full blown sexual texts from someone else (19%).

Not surpisingly, Virgin has cashed in on a gimmick to capitalise on this trend. Customers can text their partner’s number to Virgin, who will then send their partner a text from a fictitious person called Sexy. When the partner opens the text it will remind them to be faithful.

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