The Future Of Cheating

Between 3-D-sex chat rooms and incognito messaging apps, sneaking around is getting a whole lot sneakier.

- Julia Pugachevsky

Although they weren’t invented for this reason, the internet, social media, and apps have ended up making it insanely easy for people in committed relationships to cheat. Constant tech advances have also introduced so many new ways to stray that it’s almost impossible to have any sort of standard code for what is and isn’t infidelity anymore.

“There are all sorts of definitions now,” says Bryony Cole, founder and host of the Future of Sex podcast. “This is the first time in history that you can be lying in bed next to your partner and cheating.” (The numbers add up. According to a recent survey, 55 percent of Americans ages 18 to 45 spend more time with their phones than with their S.O.s...not sketch at all!)

Also, coming soon: "sexy" tech like virtual reality and robotics that will blur lines of faithfulness even more. Here's your road map.

5 New Ways People Stray

1 Incognito sexting

Forget deleting sexty iMessage threads. Any sneaky Pete with a smartphone can now download a free app like Viber to cover their tracks. Largely used to help people reach friends and family overseas, Viber’s newer features like Secret Chat (which lets you schedule text convos to self-destruct after a certain amount of time) and Hidden Chats (it requires a special PIN to access specific threads) make covering suspicious tracks all too easy.

2 Hookup hotels