Sexting : A Deeper Understanding On The Issue Of Sexting

Imagine your teen facing pornography charges, as they are forced to register as a sex offender. You may think this is an image in a bad movie, but it happened in North Carolina, New Jersey, Utah, and several other states. In these states, 16 to 18 year old teens teased each other with “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” type dares. After sending each other nude selfies, they found themselves charged with distributing child pornography. Imagine the enormous stress, public humiliation, and legal feels their parents and they faced. Parents can no longer turn a blind eye to sexting. Recent research found that over 20% of American teens admitted sending a nude selfie and over 25% admitted to forwarding a sext, which they received, to friends.

As a child born into a world coloured by electronics and filled with Web 2.0 discourse, social media has painted my worldview. It is difficult to imagine my world without social media and constant “oversharing” as this has been a significant aspect of my life for as long as I can remember. Since receiving my first cell phone in the sixth grade, my mother has always been on my speed-dial and is one of the contacts with whom I am always in constant communication. After dramatically increasing the amount of information I sent to my mother through text messaging, I gained a greater understanding of the amount that oversharing has become naturalized in modern society. Through an emic analysis, I was able to understand the culture of oversharing by actively participating in this culture. An emic analysis is an effective method for studying the culture of oversharing, as being part of the culture highlights the impacts of the culture. In modern-day society, oversharing is taking place as a function of instant messaging through many different forms, such as texting, Facebook, and Snapchat. The participants in these practices have created a new culture of online communities and an entirely new lexicon, including emojis and acronyms. As well as the advantages brought by new technology, any new media will have inherent consequences. With texting, people have started oversharing through “sexting”, sending explicit messages or photographs. Social media platforms also have consequences of

In the US today Americans recently discovered an emerging trend known as adolescent sexting. Sexting has been defined as the sending or receiving of sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images, messages, or video through a cellphone or the Internet; sexting can also be referred to as sending nudes. As Guidance Counselors at a High School it is imperative that we educate ourselves and our students on the consequences sexting may have. Many students fail to realize that once the photos or messages are sent there is no turning back. Those images/messages may be forwarded to audiences via the internet and various social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat etc. causing humiliation, depression and in some cases even causing suicide.

Sexting has been all over the news. Of course its normal for someone to want to send a naughty picture to the significant other, but now we have teens (and even pre-teens) sending nude pictures to get attention from someone of the opposite sex. The pictures usually end up all over the teens school. We live in a new day and age, but most adults would be mortified if a nude picture of them was seen by someone that wasn’t

Sexting is imprudent, untoward, and unfortunately - not all that uncommon. In a recent study of college freshmen, thirty-one percent of the participants reported sending a sexting image of themselves in high school to someone else using a cell phone (Martinez-Prather, 28).This action is a felony crime in Kansas, punishable by up to thirty-four years in jail, a substantial fine, and inclusion on the registered sexual offender list for life (Mobile Media Guard). While this may seem like excessive punishment for sexting, this punishment in not specifically for sexing. Since Kansas has no laws directly related to sexting, when minors are involved in sexting, the laws they have broken are those

Text messaging took a big turn around when people started taking advantage of it and started sending rude, hateful, naughty stuff. Texting while driving, sexting, and bullying gave modern society a number of new challenges. Explicit photos were being sent out by mobile phones, where that led to be the biggest problem with texting. Teenagers began to think that it was okay to send nudes out, little did they know people started forwarding them to their friends. One in five teenage girls have admitted taking nudes of themselves (Cooke). Teenagers that take pictures can end up threatened or even humiliated,

Americans recently discovered an emerging trend known as adolescent sexting. Sexting has been defined as the sending or receiving of sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images, messages, or video through a cellphone or the Internet. Sexting can also be referred to as sending nudes. As Guidance Counselors at a High School it is imperative that we educate ourselves and our students on the consequences sexting may have. Many students fail to realize that once the photos or messages are sent, there is no turning back. Those images/messages may be forwarded to audiences via the internet and various social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat etc, causing humiliation, depression and in some cases even causing suicide.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t… If You’re A Girl: Relational and Normative Contexts of Adolescent Sexting in the United States is a study by which researchers Julia R. Lippman and Scott W. Campbell investigate the teenage phenomenon of sexting. Their study looks at the

Some states have enacted laws against sexting that occurs between teenagers, with penalties that aren't as severe as those that apply to an adult who sends illicit images to an underage person. Other states punish sexting under pre-existing laws against child enticement

The article supported their claim through collecting data from the website NevaEvaLand, a popular social media page used by girls in low-income areas such as Atlanta, Georgia, to display how different sexual scripts influenced the way girls acted on the internet. Stokes found that there were five groups that most girls would label themselves a part of the, “Freaks, Virgins, Down-Ass Chick, Pimpette, and Resisters” (Stokes 124). After analyzing the five different sexual scripts, the author described the attitude each person carried towards sex and how they acted on the internet. Her reasoning for why the girls acted in the manner they did online was because they were looking for different pleasures out of sexual partners. The Freaks and Down-Ass Chicks were more promiscuous and expressed that on their homepage, while those such as Virgins were finding someone who was fine with abstaining from sex. The data collected made her reasoning effective by providing credible support to her

The next group of students, grades seven through nine, will increase be more relevant to what exactly sexting is.  The average age that children now-a-days are getting cellular telephones is 11.6 years of age (The Online Mom).  Therefore, text messaging will be come more relevant to this junior high school age, and it will greatly benefit the students to know exactly what cellular telephones are supposed to be used for, and what sexting entails.  This will educate the students about what kind of text messages are appropriate, and what kind of messages (including what sexting is) are inappropriate, and the consequences that can entail sending sexts.

Sexting on Snapchat spread because of teenagers and by teenagers who wanted to escape from their parents control and have something to do that felt private. “what really makes a new social network become popular fast? Teenagers.”

Over the years so much has changed in terms of peoples views on young peoples sexuality and on sexting and the rules and consequences associated with sexting. If you jump forward a generation or two to the contemporary world, you will realise the social and sexual landscape has changed dramatically. Sex is regulated less and is in some ways less risky for many young Australians. More young people are having sex and more are having sex at young ages. Social mores have changed. The feminist and gay rights social movements have mobilised for legal and social change. For heterosexual young people, effective contraception is widely available and pregnancy terminations are legal and available through the public health care system. Homosexual sex

Teenagers engage in casual sex to feel mature and part of a society that shapes the idea of casual sex as a liberating and empowering event. Shows like “Sex and the City” promote women who have jobs, friends, and a very active sexual life with strangers and because of this they claim to “have it all,” as the character of Samantha said in an episode. Entertainment and the media are filled with sex driven programs, commercials and books.

In a matter of decades, technology has advanced astronomically. From the nine month old boy who was born with a heart defect to the teenager who is waiting for a text from her mother, the usage of technology has had an impact on how people live their lives. Like many beneficial areas in life, there are always pros and cons. It is crucial that within the realm of technology, people take into account both; especially within communication technology. Communication technology has facilitated the way the world moves. However, without caution and with abuse, it can become a threat to our privacy, individualism, and health. The negative side effects of technology can range from, but are not limited to: cyberbullying, catfishing, stress, anxiety, identity crisis and depression.