The headlines continue to shock us: “20% of Teens Have Sent Sexy Photos”; “Police: Graphic Photos of Underage NH Girls Circulated by Classmates”; “Teens Bare All On Phones”; “Sexting Could Put Your Teen At Risk For Prosecution On Kiddie Porn Charges”. Last week’s Today Show featured the inevitable tragic ending to these tales: “Her Teen Committed Suicide Over “Sexting”.
Those of us in the online safety industry have been discussing this disturbing trend for quite some time. We know that children who create, send, post, forward these salacious images can run afoul of the law. Just as a child can get arrested for loitering and not be able to claim ignorance as a defense, children who get prosecuted for engaging in the creation and distribution of child pornography can’t say, “I didn't know!” Our laws don’t have the nuance required to discern a teenager’s sexy image meant just for her same-aged boyfriend. So what are our options as a society?
Do we fine-tune our laws to avoid criminalizing childish acts? What about the occasions when the images are shared after the teen lovers break up? Should that redistribution be penalized but not the initial creation and sharing? Or what about the child who foolishly decides to forward his/her nude photo to several other kids, either as a prank or to increase their social standing? The law can’t take this level of punishment, certainly not with the number of iterations possible.
Teens believe taking and sharing the sexy photo of themselves is a natural progression point in a romantic relationship. It’s not just “step 1, hold hands; step 2, kiss”. Now it’s “step 1. Friend on social network; step 2. Chat on IM or text; 3. Send sexy photos.” Crazy!
As I said in a previous post, the main message here is for parents to get involved. We’re not doing enough to educate our teens about the proper way to use technology. Nag all you want but kids really don’t understand the concepts of long term impact or reputational harm. It’s going to take the whole darn village here to get the message across.
I’ve already talked about “The Talk” – five questions to get your kids opening up about their internet lives. Here’s the revised edition of “The Talk” for our kids to understand how they might be at risk for sexting:
The Cellphone Talk:
1. Give me a tour of your cell phone. Any cool features or tricks you can do with your cell phone?
2. Show me how you take a photo with the phone. How do you send it to another email or phone?
3. Where do you save the photos? Show me what you’ve got saved. (You might want to give them 24 hours warning on this one in case there is some embarrassing or dumb stuff in there.)
4. Has anyone ever sent or shown you a sexy photo of themselves or someone else?
5. Anyone ever asked for your photo? If yes, how did you handle it? If no, what would you do and why?
In addition, we’ll need more media exposure to inform the parents and educators about sexting. We need more educators and school administrations setting clearly defined cell phone policies in their schools. We need more youth and religious programs to discuss privacy issues and teaching our youth how to say “no” to peer pressure (or at least make the effort). We need those who come in regular contact with our youth to be prepared to deal with these events so they can counsel the children appropriately, inform and educate the parents and caregivers, give the best legal advice, provide access to law enforcement as necessary and support our children as they grapple with damaged reputations and shattered self-confidence.
I’d rather see us avoid these situations in the future with better education but in the near term let’s do more to support and nurture those who have made these sad mistakes. And in this way, let’s honor the memory of Jesse Logan, the beautiful young woman who ended her life over a tragic mistake.
Additional resources:
NetFamilyNews: http://www.netfamilynews.org/2008/11/teens-nude-photo-sharing-in-nh.html
And: http://www.netfamilynews.org/labels/naked%20photo%20sharing.html