Many Young Kids Are Sexting, But Should Parents Panic?
http://www.alternet.org/many-young-kids-are-sexting-should-parents-panic
Twenty percent of middle-school students with cellphones send and recieve sexually explicit messages and are likely to be more sexually active, a national study by the journal Pediatrics says.
As part of its Youth Behavior Risk Study, the journal found that students who say they send sexts are three times more likely to be sexually active and those who receive them are seven times more likely. While 20 percent of middle-school children reported receiving texts, only 5 percent reported sending them.
The study is the first to examine sexting among middle-school students and its relation to sexual activity. It found children in their pre- and early-teen years use their phones frequently (something parents already know). Some 68 percent of middle-school students said they had a cellphone for daily use and 39 percent of them said they send more than 100 text messages a day. The study found it was the group that texted frequently that was more likely to send and receive sexually explicit messages. That group was also more likely to be sexually active (defined as either oral, vaginal or anal intercourse) as well.
But Boston.com blogger Claire McCarthy says parents shouldn’t panic about cellphones just yet:
So if you take a step back, another way to think about sexts as just another way socially connected youth explore and broadcast their sexuality. For some middle schoolers, sexting may even be seen as a safer alternative to actual sexual activity, a way of talking the talk without having to walk the walk.
That may be why sexting was more common among GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender) youth—it's a way of connecting and experimenting that keeps some distance—and for those youth, distance may feel safer as they sort out how others may react to their sexual orientation.
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On a random occasion someone might view some random bit of traffic but except in the case where an actual perv is mistakenly hired by one of these outfits, no one is taking the time to peruse content that's passing through these systems; they're all too busy trying to keep their paycheck like every one else. I'm not saying it doesn't happen that a perv gets hired, or some slug takes a break and looks for something to laugh at (then forgets it completely when the work bell sounds and they go back to what they're supposed to be doing), but these are not routine things and the chance for any single individual being a victim of this is infinitesimally small.
The REAL issue, which you rightly raise, is that intended recipients can turn on the person and then misuse the photos to harm them, or at least embarrass them. OR, the kid makes the mistake every user makes at least once, and that is to send it to people it wasn't intended to go to (maybe the "public"
.
So yeah, parents should try to prevent this behavior as much as possible, and try to make kids understand why it's a really bad idea to do it. (Kids WON'T understand though, hence it should be blocked as much as possible, at least until a certain age, like 45. Ok just kidding about 45.)
