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鈥淚 don鈥檛 say anything over text that could get me into trouble,鈥� said a friend of mine last week.

We鈥檇 been talking about that sickening feeling when you send a聽text to the person that you鈥檙e talking about, rather to the person you鈥檙e talking about them to.

Don鈥檛 judge me 鈥� we鈥檝e all done it.There鈥檚 even a website dedicated to it called Wrong Number Texts.

The lady I was talking to is in her 50s and at first I thought it was a generational thing and that she was being overcautious.

After all, when we spend so much of our time communicating via text, email, WhatsApp and Facebook, surely it wouldn鈥檛 be feasible to never say anything bad about anyone, or send something innocent but private to the wrong number.

Then I remembered hearing about a type of聽ransomware called 鈥楲eakerLocker鈥�. It locks your phone and threatens to share your emails, texts, web history and photos with your entire contact list unless you pay the hacker $50.

Unless you plan on deleting your boss, parents and a good half of your friends from your contacts list, I鈥檇 be willing to bet that鈥檚 not something even the nicest of us would want to happen.

The problem is it鈥檚 so easy to forget that when you share something it鈥檚 out there, in ink, forever 鈥� and horribly, traumatically shareable.

This was brought into painful focus this week with the tragic story of a 17-year-old Northern Irish schoolboy who was blackmailed by a Romanian hacker.

The hacker convinced the boy to send him explicit pictures via webcam, and then sent the pictures to the boy鈥檚 friends after he couldn鈥檛 pay the ransom.

The boy committed suicide and the blackmailer was jailed this week for four years.

It might seem a bit dated to be talking about the dangers of sending explicit pictures via webcam but clearly being aware of what you share is still a lesson that needs to be learned 鈥� and, crucially, passed on.

It might be awkward to tell your kids or friends to be careful about sending dodgy pictures online or saying mean things about their frenemies via text, but as people who have grown up with huge swathes of their communication via text and social media it probably wouldn鈥檛 even occur to them that a throwaway text or picture to someone they trust could come back to haunt them.

It鈥檚 not just the next generation that鈥檚 at risk either.

There have been countless examples of this happening to adults, from the high-profile 鈥� such as the 鈥楩appening鈥� in 2014, which saw over 500 private celeb pictures shared online 鈥� to the subtle, such as ratting 鈥� where a users鈥� webcam is turned on and set to record without them realising.

I was reading the feed of one particularly angry tech expert on Twitter yesterday who said that we鈥檙e all idiots if we think that Facebook isn鈥檛 reading our private massages.

This might sound a bit conspiracy theory-y, but聽he may well be聽right to be angry 鈥� it is probably foolish to believe our communications are as private as we think they are.

The threat of hackers accessing our private information isn鈥檛 a new thing but there have always been ways around it for the aware, from installing聽anti-virus to creating backups of files in case of ransomware attacks. At the end of the day money isn鈥檛 the be all and end all anyway.

What鈥檚 new is this threat of sharing and shaming, and especially when it targets the next generation.

That 17-year-old boy probably never thought he鈥檇 be a target for an international hacker.

We need to wake up and realise that writing something out digitally isn鈥檛 the same as having a chat with a mate behind closed doors, and that there鈥檚 way more opportunity for disaster 鈥� even if it is that you just send a text meant for your best mate Dan to your聽Dad.

In all likelihood people aren鈥檛 going to stop saying embarrassing or incriminating things over text but it鈥檚 something to bear in mind next time you go to hit the send button.

Now if you鈥檒l excuse me, I鈥檝e got some texts to delete鈥�