There are many teen sexting images online today. In fact there are sexting pics and sexting pic posts springing up all over. The internet today is responsible for more than89% of all sexting photo galleries in the entire world. Recent data suggests that social media (SM) venues like Facebook and MySpace have surpassed e-mail as the preferred method of communication in all age groups. While today’s tweens and teens may be more digitally savvy than their parents, their lack of maturity and life experience can quickly get them into trouble with these new social venues. For this reason, it is imperative that parents talk with their children of all ages about social media and monitor their online SM use to help them navigate this new online social world. How parents talk with their kids and teens will vary slightly by age depending on the topic being discussed. These tips will help you start that journey with your family.
“Sexting” refers to sending a text message with pictures of children or teens that are inappropriate, naked or engaged in sex acts. According to a recent survey, about 20 percent of teen boys and girls have sent such messages. The emotional pain it causes can be enormous for the child in the picture as well as the sender and receiver–often with legal implications. Parents must begin the difficult conversation about sexting before there is a problem and introduce the issue as soon as a child is old enough to have a cell phone.
While it may be shocking, the practice of “sexting” – sending nude pictures via text message – is not unusual, especially for high schoolers around the country.
This week, three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a western Pennsylvania high school who received them, are charged with child pornography.
In October a Texas eighth-grader spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a nude picture on his cell phone that a fellow student sent him.
Roughly 20 percent of teens admit to participating in “sexting,” according to a nationwide survey (pdf) by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
“This is a serious felony. They could be facing many years in prison,” CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said of the six teens in Pennsylvania.
But, Bloom added, “What are we going to do, lock up 20 percent of America’s teens?”
Police in Greensburg, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh, say the girls are 14 or 15 and the boys charged with receiving the photos are 16 or 17. None are being identified because most criminal cases in Pennsylvania juvenile courts are not public.
Police say they first learned about the pictures in October. They say a student had a phone turned on in class, a violation of school policy, which prompted an administrator to confiscate the phone and subsequently find the pictures, reports CBS station KDKA-TV.