For today’s young people, there seems to be no difference between their online and offline worlds, as they are both intimately intertwined. What used to be the norm in society is no more, meeting someone in the past used to end with, “what’s your phone number?” Now this same meeting ends with, “what’s your email, Facebook, Twitter?”
Sharing photos of one’s self has also dramatically changed over the past few years. Sending photos has gone from old fashioned ‘snail mail’, to uploading for email, and has now transitioned into simply snapping a pic with a smartphone and sharing it with the click of only a few buttons. With this new ease of sharing photos, a new trend has also evolved into a dangerous and widespread trend known as Sexting.
What may have started as innocent adult flirting and sharing of photos with a partner or significant other at one point, has drastically morphed into teens and young children uploading and sharing explicit photos of themselves, with dangerous consequences. The popularity of the term has even now been recognized by Merriam-Webster this year with a list of new words and phrases entered into the dictionary:
Sexting: The sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone.
Education about sexting and its risks have already started, but are no longer limited to teens and young kids, parents and all other adults need to be aware of its many potential dangers. Kids can easily be lured in by predators befriending them, only looking to take advantage of them.
Recently a Kansas jury found a repeat offender guilty of luring a teenage girl to send nude photos of herself to his phone, he was later sentenced to 27 yrs in prison. Parents need to also be aware that it is not only strangers looking to take advantage of young teens. Take for instance the case of a former hockey coach who was also convicted of luring an underage female player to send explicit photos to his phone.
Education about sexting should not just be based on scare tactics, but actually question the social norms behind sexting. Today’s teens and young kids are educated and well informed of the risks of befriending strangers, yet some still do it. But while most teens are aware of this, some develop a false sense of security thinking it’s ok to share these photos with peers, not realizing it is them who are actually most likely to circulate the photos to others.
What starts out as innocent flirting can quickly lead to life changing consequences and even legal issues. Parents and teens alike should be aware of the many potential dangers of sexting and just not participate in it.