Incoming text from the Supreme Court: “Privacy? LOL. Use ur phone.” The court this week unanimously upheld a police department’s search of an officer’s personal, sometimes sexually explicit, messages on a government-owned pager, saying the search did not violate his constitutional rights.

While the ruling only applied to government workers, corporations tell employees: "When I give you this technology, you have no expectation of privacy," said Michael Foreman, director of the Civil Rights Appellate Clinic at Penn State Dickinson School of Law.

The justices struggled with understanding the technology, and their ruling reflects that, Foreman said. "I think that's the issue not only of the courts, but we're all going to be struggling with: Ultimately when you have Facebook and other kinds of technology, what is your expectation of privacy of anything?"

The case the court reviewed involved sexually explicit text messages that Jeff Quon, a police sergeant in Ontario, Calif., sent on his department pager. In one month alone, Quon sent or received 456 messages during work hours and nearly 400 were personal. Quon and three other people who sent him messages sued. They contended the search violated their constitutional rights.

Pennsylvania workers using office technology shouldn’t expect privacy, said a spokesman with the Office of Administration.

“Those devices, your computer, your Blackberry, other technology issued to you from the Commonwealth is our property and we reserve the right to monitor your use of them to make sure you are not going to sites that are not work related and engaging in behavior that is not work appropriate,” said spokesman Dan Egan.

Of course everyone does a certain amount of personal work. “You need to tell your spouse to pick up eggs and milk after work,” Egan said. That’s OK as long as it doesn’t conflict with work and is not excessive, he said. “There is a certain amount of personal and work life that is blending from time to time.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.