Here is an article which showed up in last week's Denver Post. In the article a teen who has been involved in sexting is interviewed his response is astounding, "I just don't see it as that big of a problem, personally."
Parents should read and be aware.
Sexting Among Young People More Common Than You Might Think
Written by Libby Quaid
WASHINGTON — Think your kid isn't "sexting"? Think again.
Sexting — sharing sexually explicit photos, videos and chat by cellphone or online — is fairly commonplace among young people, despite sometimes grim consequences for those who do it. More than a quarter of young people have been involved in sexting in some form, an Associated Press-MTV poll found.
That includes Sammy, a 16-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area who asked that his last name not be used.
Sammy said he had shared naked pictures of himself with girlfriends. He also shared naked pictures of someone else that a friend had sent him.
What he didn't realize at the time was that young people across the country — in Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — have faced charges, in some cases felony charges, for sending nude pictures.
"That's why I probably wouldn't do it again," Sammy said. "(But) I just don't see it as that big of a problem, personally."
That was the view of nearly half of those surveyed who have been involved in sexting. The other half said it's a serious problem — and did it anyway. Knowing there might be consequences hasn't stopped them.
"There's definitely the invincibility factor that young people feel," said Kathleen Bogle, a sociology professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia and author of the book "Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus." "That's part of the reason why they have a high rate of car accidents and things like that, is they think, 'Oh, well, that will never happen to me.' "
Sexting doesn't stop with teenagers.
Young adults are even more likely to have sexted; a third of them said they had been involved in sexting, compared with about a fourth of teenagers.
Those who sent nude pictures of themselves mostly said they went to a boyfriend, girlfriend or romantic interest.
But 14 percent said they suspect the pictures were shared without permission, and they may be right: Seventeen percent of those who received naked pictures said they passed them along to someone else, often to more than just one person.
Criminal charges aren't the worst consequences of sexting. In at least two cases, sexting has been linked to suicide. Last year in Cincinnati, 18-year-old Jessica Logan hanged herself after weeks of ridicule at school; she had sent a nude cellphone picture to her boyfriend, and after they broke up, he forwarded the picture to other girls.
And three months ago, 13-year-old Hope Witsell hanged herself after relentless taunting at her school near Tampa, Fla. She had sent a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked, and another girl used his phone to send the picture to other students who forwarded it along.
Other teenage suicides have been linked to online bullying, also a subject of the AP-MTV poll. Half of all young people said they have been targets of digital bullying.
The poll, conducted Sept. 11-22, involved online interviews with 1,247 teenagers and adults ages 14-24. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
The Associated Press
Posted: 12/04/2009 01:00:00 AM MST
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