Sexting, What is it and What can I do about it?

What is it?

“Sexting(a portmanteau of sex and texting) is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between mobile phones.(Wikipedia)”

Why should I be concerned?

First, from a legal standpoint, the fact that sexting can lead to jail time as the sending of sexually explicit pictures of minors is considered child pornography and is a felony.

Second, sexting is becoming more prominent and at even younger ages. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy conducted a study on the prevalence of sexting in teenagers. 39% of teens admitted to sending sexually explicit texts or images to boyfriends or girlfriends. Another 48% admit that they have received at some point in time such messages. Therefore, in all likelihood, in a class of 20 students, nearly half of them have sent or received a sexually suggestive message. That is your son or daughter!

Third, sexting rarely leads to positive outcomes. Teenagers in general are adapting and adjusting to a new world both in society and with their own bodies. The implications that suggestive messages or photos have can be devastating if handled inappropriately. Consider a situation: An eight grader at a middle school sends a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend (A freshman in high school). They then break up, and to get revenge, the boyfriend sends the image to a bunch of his friends. This picture continues to circulate the school. Don’t think it could happen? It just did at a private school in Atlanta. What are the consequences? The boy is going to jail for a felony, the girl is removed from the school that she attended, her reputation tarnished. Not to mention the immense emotional and psychological damage that was inflicted on those involved.

Why am I discussing this?

As a technology teacher, it is amazing to see the advance of technology that we have had in recent years. There are a number of positive outcomes involved in the advance of technology, but it is a double-edged sword. Like eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we have opened ourselves to both tremendous goods and terrible evils.  

Sexting is one of those evils that we don’t like to discuss and want to assume that our students are not involved in, however, it is obvious that it cannot be pushed under the rug any longer. Everyone must be confronted with the truth of how this perversion in the use of technology can cause harm to all involved.

How Can Parents Mitigate the Risk of Sexting?

First, be the unpopular one. While the steps I am about to outline are effective, they are not popular. Your student may be upset with you or consider you to be irrational. Just keep in mind the alternative is exploitation and jail time.

Second, ditch the data. Contact your phone provider and tell them you wish to block all MULTIMEDIA MESSAGING to and from your student’s phone. This will protect them against the felony issue of child pornography. They will still be able to text, though which means they could still participate in sending suggestive text messages. The next step will help alleviate this problem.

Third, check and recheck. On a regular basis and at random times check your student’s phone. Make sure your student hands it over immediately, so they cannot delete anything that is on it (this is why the random times is important also, so they do not expect you to check and therefore do not delete messages). Make it known with your student that this is a policy and expectation that you will enforce. If they don’t like it, then take the phone. As a side note, a number of cell phone services also provide monitoring of phone calls and messages sent to and from a phone for a nominal fee. The fee for AT&T is $9.99 a month and you can see not only who they are sending and receiving messages from, but you can also see the content of the messages. This is invaluable and should be something you add on to your plan if your phone provider offers it. How do you know if they do or not? Simply call your provider and ask them if they offer such a program. This allows you to discreetly check what your student is doing without them knowing and without their ability to cover their tracks.

Finally, knowledge is power. Equip your student with the understanding of the pitfalls of such actions and set down guidelines for what they should do if such a text or message is ever sent or received. This way the student has defined boundaries in which to operate and will be thankful to you for setting the parameters (even if they don’t say so).

Technology can be a blessing or a curse depending on what its use becomes, make sure that your child’s technology is the former and not the latter.

For more information, see the links below:

www.TheNationalCampaign.org/sextech

www.cosmogirl.com

Resources

"Sex and Tech | The National Campaign." The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. CosmoGirl.com, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2010. .

"Sexting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2010. .

WSB Radio. "Lovett 'Sexting' Scandal - WSB News on wsbradio.com." News/Talk 750 WSB on wsbradio.com. Chris Camp, 4 Mar. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2010. .