These days, the stories we hear about kidz and the technology are often cautionary tales: strangers! sexting! TEXT NECK! But Nancy Schwartzman — producer and director of the in-the-works film xoxosms — wants to tell a different, more salutary tale:  about  (young) people forging relationships that may start as virtual, but are very, very real.

“xoxosms is about first love, long distance and Skype. It looks closely at one young couple who — like many — met online and fell in love before ever meeting each other,” says Schwartzman. “There’s a tension between their ‘digital intimacy’ and real life, and the film explores the way the digital world, full of intimacy, bonding, sweetness, is a way to mitigate the hard stuff of growing up and having sex. A way to be close without things getting too confusing.”

The documentary tells the true love story of Gus and Jiyun — a home schooled 19-year-old from a religious family in small-town Illinois and a 19-year-old Korea-born New York City art student — who met nearly a year ago in possibly the only place two people so different might ever find each other: The Internet. Over the past 18 months, they have built an intensely intimate world via Skype, AIM and iChat. They are each other’s very first loves, and through the Internet, they have established a connection that feels as real as if they were right there beside each other.

Help xoxosms have a happy ending! You can kick in a few bucks here to help Schwartzman & co. complete their project. (They’re already over halfway there, with 19 days to go!) You can share your story at their Tumblr, “Without the Internet We Never Would Have Met.” And you can watch the trailer, oh, right now!

Clearly, the grownups aren’t at all sure what to do about sexting. While legal scholars (rightly) ponder when, whether, and most importantly how to prosecute sexters, one Pennsylvania school/DA threatened kids suspected of sexting with child pornography charges unless they took part in an after-school program which, among other things, required girls to write essays on why their actions were wrong; the goal: to “gain an understanding of what it means to be a girl in today’s society.” Is it shaming in here, or is it just me? To be sure, sexting should be taken seriously (as harassment and abuse). But why do I suspect — perhaps cynically, yes — that this focus on “what it means” will not include a full exploration of the deep cultural factors that appropriate and contain girls’ sexuality and limit their worth and self-expression to “hotness”? (Maybe it will; I hope I’m wrong.)

But as theoreotical counterpoint — and to counter the oft-peddled image of teens doing nothing all day but re-watching Twilight, playing Kill Everyone, and forwarding around naked photos of the French exchange student, I offer this: a reminder of many of the positive and, dare I say, actually empowering, ways that girls use social media.

As eleventh-grader Nadia Tareen — as part of a video series on media issues called Girls Investigate, a joint project of The Women’s Media Center (WMC) and Girls Learn International®, Inc. — writes:

Adults are often too fast to condemn teenagers’ use of technology. We aren’t as “clueless about online threats as some adults believe – Two-thirds of the teens who have created profiles have used privacy controls to limit access to them.” Also, I suspect that my parents and teachers are unaware of everything that my peers and I accomplish online. For example, social media is a great tool for activism. As the leader of my school’s chapter of Girls Learn International®, Inc., I have found that e-mail and Facebook messages are invaluable for organizing and spreading awareness. Teenagers even use social media to make their dreams come true. As an avid YouTube-watcher, I can cite at least a dozen teenagers who posted videos of their musical and comedic talents on the website, to then be discovered by industry professionals. If social media is used intelligently, it can yield endless benefits.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn assists a guy who is Haunted By Her Past – And perhaps with good reason, since she is not discouraging calls texts and emails from them like:

One guy, when he found out we were together, texted: “I guess you don’t love me any more.” Another guy — someone she was engaged to — texted several times to confirm that she was “truly happy” and yet another wants to meet up for lunch and a movie.

Read the letter at Happen then come back here to comment!

From today’s New York Times:

Text messages are the new lipstick on the collar, the mislaid credit card bill. Instantaneous and seemingly casual, they can be confirmation of a clandestine affair, a record of the not-so-discreet who sometimes forget that everything digital leaves a footprint.

This became painfully obvious a week ago when a woman who claims to have had an affair with Tiger Woods told a celebrity publication that he had sent her flirty text messages, some of which were published. It follows on the heels of politicians who ran afoul of text I.Q., including a former Detroit mayor who went to prison after his steamy text messages to an aide were revealed, and Senator John Ensign of Nevada, whose affair with a former employee was confirmed by an incriminating text message.

Unlike earlier eras when a dalliance might be suspected but not confirmed, nowadays text messages provide proof. Divorce lawyers say they have seen an increase in cases in the past year where a wronged spouse has offered text messages to show that a partner has strayed. The American Bar Association began offering seminars this fall for marital attorneys on how to use electronic evidence — text messages, browsing history and social networks — in proving a case.

Read the rest here. Of course, this also totally happened on Glee.

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn advises Maybe Not So Mature? who can’t stop thinking about her fling with a younger man.

I cannot stop thinking about him. It’s driving me nuts! This is not what I need because I am finally ready to date after being divorced over a year and dating losers for six months. I feel weak for sitting and hoping that he calls.

Is she putting too much emphasis on this dalliance and should she feel bad about that? See if you agree with Lynn’s advice, then come back here to comment!

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you’ll find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week’s entry is from AE, who is worried that his communication style  — lots of texting — which worked well with his last relationship, isn’t working with his new girl. Things may be over before they’ve begun, so what can he do? Read the column at Happen, check out the comments from our MSN posting, and add yours below.

And I was worried about getting my books back from my ex when we broke up!

A man in China was so upset when his girlfriend broke up with him (via text message) that he threatened to post their sex videos online if she didn’t get back together with him. He also stole her wallet.

This display of chivalry did not make her change her mind. Instead, it made her call the cops. The gent was placed on probation and sentenced to 100 hours of community service. The judge told Chris Brown him he was lucky he got off with a light sentence.

The whole story — bad English translation included — is here.

I have a confession to make. I am a text-holic. And now that I have unlimited  messaging on my iPhone, I have made it my mission to get my money’s worth. I use it to send quick messages to people I don’t really want to talk to. I use it to convey important information when talking on the phone isn’t practical. (i.e. “Movie starts @ 7:15. See u there,” from staff meeting) And I use it to flirt.

Clearly I’m not alone. At least, you know, not in one sense. Text-flirting is sufficiently popular — and landmine-laden — to have spawned not only the unseemly neologism “flirtexting,” but also the book Flirtexting: How to Text Your Way to His Heart and more Web sites than you can shake a rotary phone at.

But of all the tips available — including these new ones from Your Tango — the most important is this: Do not text while under the influence. I have sent out more mortifying texts than I care to remember.

Fortunately, friends don’t let friends text tipsy. My roommate has actually taken to giving me her phone at the start of a girl’s night out with the admonishment, “No matter how hard I beg for this back. DO NOT GIVE IT TO ME!” It’s the same category of bad as drunk dialing, only somehow so much worse as it’s down in the written word, memorialized for all the world to see, and undeniable in the sober light of morning. And likely full of typos.

I would remind everyone that breaking up via text is tacky, but I don’t need a fatwa against this site:

A Saudi man has divorced his wife by text message, a newspaper said earlier this month.

The man was in Iraq when he sent the message informing her she was no longer his spouse. He followed up with a telephone call to two of his relatives, the daily Arab News reported. …

Saudi Arabia practices a strict form of Islamic Sharia law, and clerics preside over Sharia courts as judges. Under the law a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times.

The Saudi man was in Iraq to participate in “what he described as ‘jihad,'” according to the Arab News. (via AOL)

Look, sometimes when you’re rushing to Iraq to aid al Qaeda militants, you don’t have time to do things properly. (And the other half of you are thinking “if only divorce was this easy here!”)

I thought it was just the English major in me that despised the butchered staccato — not to mention the soulless narrative and truncated nuance — of texting. Turns out, it was probably just my estrogen talking.

Studying text messages submitted by young men and women to Allmusic, Italy’s TRL-like interactive music channel, researchers from Indiana University found that “while men historically talk more in public settings, when the exchanges occur via text messaging in a public venue …  it is the women who push their messages closest to the character-count limit, who use more abbreviations and insertions, and who implement more emoticons (like smiling and frowning faces).”

In other words, while men historically out-verbiage women oratorially, women seem to try harder and longer (yup, that’s what she said… and said and said) at conveying content and meaning when they have to do so via SMS.

Funny enough, I was planning to announce to my friends this week (via my much-loved Facebook page, a technology I so prefer to txt) that I am *off*texting*for*good!*. My status shall soon read: “Rose no longer emits or accepts text messages. She is a callivore, not a textinarian.” And yeah, I just made up those two zeitgeist-ready words. Feel free to pass along.