How Big of a Problem is Sexting?  |  Five Tips for Parents on Talking about Sexting
Parents' Use of Technology Tools  |  Sex & Tech Survey

Pandora's Box of Modern Technology

On March 6th, NBC's Today Show reported the story of Jesse Logan, an 18-year old girl in Cincinnati who committed suicide over "sexting". Jesse had sent nude pictures of herself to a boyfriend. When they broke up, he sent the photos to other high school girls out of spite. These girls were harassing Jesse, calling her a "s**t" and a "w****". Jesse was miserable and depressed, afraid even to go to school. Jesse's mother, Cynthia Logan, spoke to Matt Lauer about her experience. "I just had a scan of the room, her closet doors were open," Logan told him. "And I walked over into her room and saw her hanging. The cell phone was in the middle of the floor." www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/

If you are a parent and you are not disturbed by this story, you should be. "Sexting" is the growing phenomenon of young people sending sexually suggestive messages and digital photos and video over the Internet and over cell phones. While it is important for parents to understand what sexting is, how pervasive the problem is, I want to also give parents a valuable tool to help protect their children and their community from the dangers that teenagers' bad decisions involving sexting can bring.

How Big of a Problem is Sexting?
At present, it is estimated that about 90% of teens and young adults are online. Current statistics indicate that 1/3 of all teens or pre-teens in the United States carry a cell phone, and about 25% of all cell phone revenues come from this age group.

Between September 25 th and October 3, 2008, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com commissioned a survey of teens and young adults to explore sexting. This was the first public study of its kind to quantify the proportion of teens and young adults that are sending or posting sexually suggestive text and images. (www.thenationalcampaign.org/sextech/) According to the results, 39 percent of teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and 48 percent reported receiving such messages. Twenty percent of teens have sent/posted nude or seminude pictures or video of themselves, and 25 percent of teen girls and 33 percent of teen boys say they have had nude or semi-nude images -- originally meant for someone else -- shared with them. Fifty-one percent of teen girls say pressure from a guy is a reason girls send sexy messages or images. [For more details of this survey, see excerpts inserted at the end of this article].

• Sexting: Law, Teens, Tech, and Bad Choices (pdf brochure)

Five Tips To Help Parents Talk To Their Kids About Sex And Technology

1. Talk to your kids about what they are doing in cyberspace.
Just as you need to talk openly and honestly with your kids about real life sex and relationships, you also want to discuss online and cell phone activity. Make sure your kids fully understand that messages or pictures they send over the Internet or their cell phones are not truly private or anonymous. Also make sure they know that others might forward their pictures or messages to people they do not know or want to see them, and that school administrators and employers often look at online profiles to make judgments about potential students/employees. It's essential that your kids grasp the potential short-term and long-term consequences of their actions.

2. Know who your kids are communicating with.
Of course it's a given that you want to know who your children are spending time with when they leave the house. Also do your best to learn who your kids are spending time with online and on the phone. Supervising and monitoring your kids' whereabouts in real life and in cyberspace doesn't make you a nag; it's just part of your job as a parent. Many young people consider someone a "friend" even if they've only met online. What about your kids?

3. Consider limitations on electronic communication.
The days of having to talk on the phone in the kitchen in front of the whole family are long gone, but you can still limit the time your kids spend online and on the phone. Consider, for example, telling your teen to leave the phone on the kitchen counter when they're at home and to take the laptop out of their bedroom before they go to bed, so they won't be tempted to log on or talk to friends at 2:00 a.m.

4. Be aware of what your teens are posting publicly.
Check out your teen's MySpace, Facebook and other public online profiles from time to time. This isn't snooping-this is information your kids are making public. If everyone else can look at it, why can't you? Talk with them specifically about their own notions of what is public and what is private. Your views may differ but you won't know until you ask, listen, and discuss.

5. Set expectations.
Make sure you are clear with your teen about what you consider appropriate "electronic" behavior. Just as certain clothing is probably off-limits or certain language unacceptable in your house, make sure you let your kids know what is and is not allowed online either. And give reminders of those expectations from time to time. It doesn't mean you don't trust your kids, it just reinforces that you care about them enough to be paying attention.

Parents' Use of Technological Tools
Rather than either fearing technology, or surrendering to it -- I suggest parents use it. While there are several commercial Internet filter software tools for parents to keep their kids safe while surfing the Internet, and most parents can monitor their kids while on the computer in a common family room, parents have had little success in supervising their kids' use of cell phones. Cell phones are mobile, and the incoming text messages and images can be deleted by tech-savvy kids. What is a parent to do?

RADAR ® - My Mobile Watchdog is a software product offered by eAgency Software, Inc., that is available for parents to download upon their kids' cell phones to help parents monitor their kids' activities. This RADAR software is simply amazing -- every parent needs to hear about it. The software's highlights are these:

1. A detailed record of every telephone number calling into the monitored cell phone, or called by the cell phone, and the full content of all incoming and outgoing text messages and digital images, is maintained on secured servers for the parents' online review at any time. This self-certifying record is available to be printed out for easy transmission and use by law enforcement agencies and courts.
   
2. Parents and their child can develop, together, a "safe list" of other persons whom the child can call and receive calls/texts without setting of a parental alert. Should the child receive a telephone call or a text/photo from any person/telephone number not on this "safe list", the parent is immediately alerted, with a message being sent, within seconds, to the parents' choice of the parent's cell phone, pager, or email - including the full text/photo.
   
3. It is not illegal "spyware", as it does not record audio conversations over the cell phone and at least every 24 hours the phone displays the message "this phone is monitored by RADAR" - reminding the user.

I think one of the best things about this RADAR software is that it gives the parent the great opportunity to talk to their child about safe cell phone usage, and the child knows the parent's supervision is intended to keep them safe. During times of uncertainty, the teenager's knowledge that their parent will have access to their texts/photos from their cell phones might just give them the excuse to just say 'no'. Jesse Logan may have been able to keep from sliding down that slippery slope of regret and despair.

It is recommended that every parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or anyone who knows a parent, check out RADAR at www.mymobilewatchdog.com

SEX & TECH SURVEY:
Several Conclusions Are Obvious From This Survey:

• A significant number of teens have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves.
• How many teens (ages 13-19) say they have sent/posted nude or seminude pictures or video of themselves?
•  20% of teens overall
•  22% of teen girls
• 18% of teen boys
• 11% of young teen girls (ages 13-16)
  
• Sexually suggestive messages (text, email, IM) are even more prevalent than sexually suggestive images.
• How many teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages?
• 39% of all teens
• 37% of teen girls
• 40% of teen boys
• 48% of teens say they have received such messages
  
• Teens and young adults are sending sexually explicit messages and images, even though they know such content often gets shared with those other than the intended recipient.
• How common is it to share sexy messages and images with those other than the intended recipient?
• 44% of both teen girls and teen boys say it is common for sexually suggestive text messages to get shared with people other than the intended recipient.
• 36% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys say it is common for nude or semi-nude photos to get shared with people other than the intended recipient.
• Who are these sexually suggestive messages and images being sent to
• 71% of teen girls and 67% of teen guys who have sent or posted sexually suggestive content say they have sent/posted this content to a boyfriend/girlfriend.
• 21% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys say they have sent such content to someone they wanted to date or hook up with.
• 15% of teens who have sent or posted nude/seminude images of themselves say they have done so to someone they only knew online.
  
•  Young people who receive nude/semi-nude images and sexually suggestive texts and emails are sharing them with other people for whom they were never intended.
• How many teens and young adults say they have been shown nude/semi-nude content originally meant for someone else?
• 38% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys say they have had sexually suggestive text messages or emails- originally meant for someone else-shared with them.
• 25% of teen girls and 33% of teen boys say they have had nude or semi-nude images-originally meant for someone else-shared with them.
• Why do teens and young adults send or post sexually suggestive content?
• 51% of teen girls say pressure from a guy is a reason girls send sexy messages or images; only 18% of teen boys cited pressure from female counterparts as a reason.
• 23% of teen girls and 24% of teen boys say they were pressured by friends to send or post sexual content.
• Among teens who have sent sexually suggestive content:
• 66% of teen girls and 60% of teen boys say they did so to be "fun or flirtatious"- their most common reason for sending sexy content.
• 52% of teen girls did so as a "sexy present" for their boyfriend.
• 44% of both teen girls and teen boys say they sent sexually suggestive messages or images in response to such content they received.
• 40% of teen girls said they sent sexually suggestive messages or images as "a joke."
• 34% of teen girls say they sent/posted sexually suggestive content to "feel sexy."
• 12% of teen girls felt "pressured" to send sexually suggestive messages or images.
  

Last Modified: Mar 23, 2010 01:37 PM