Sexting In Why Kids Sext

In the article, “Why Kids Sext,” Hanna Rosin explains the reasoning behind why kids sext and what the punishment should be for those who do sext. Rosin hooks the reader with a general statement about a scandal involving young teens on Instagram before jumping into an anecdote. This anecdote involves a mother getting a call from her daughter’s friend saying that there was a naked picture of her daughter on Instagram. Rosin then describes the daughter as a good student who volunteers and plays sports, emphasizing that this kind of thing can happen to anyone. She structures her article using a main example, with small examples laced throughout, however always coming back to her main example. Her use of statistics enlightens the reader onto the common practice of sexting between teens.

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

The article “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” is written by Dana L. Fleming and appears in the winter 2008 issue of the New England Journal of Higher Education. Fleming’s objective with this article is to show college students the dangers of social networking sites, and at the same time she is advising parents on the social networking world.

Utilizing social media has been shown to enhance communication, social interaction, and sharpen technical skills of teenagers. Benefits to teens of social media allow them to socialize with friends, make new friend, and even help each other on group projects or homework. Studies indicate that over 20% of teenagers log onto social media sites over 10 times in one day. A con in social media is that its has caused cyberbullying and online hate. Studies have shown that online harassment is no more common than offline harassment. Another con in social media is that sexting has increased 20% in teens. These teens have indicated that they have posted nude or semi nude photos of themselves. Teens do not realize the risk

Adolescents send messages to others in their schools, groups of friends, and their everyday peers. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy took a survey in 2008 and showed 39% of teenage girls had “sent or posted sexually suggestive messages (or ‘sexts’)” (450). To clarify, this means that young girls are sending naked pictures to people that they are associated with. They also proved 22% of young ladies have used a computerized device to send or upload an unclothed or sensuous photo.

In an article titled “Why Kids Sext” Hanna Rosin, tells stories of teenagers who have had recent experiences with sexting. Rosin speaks about a High School in Virginia where there were Instagram accounts containing explicit images of teenage girls of “Every race, religion, social, and financial status in the town. Rich, poor, everyone. That’s what was most glaring and blaring about the situation. If she was a teenager with a phone, she was on there,” said Major Lowe (qtd. In Rosin 388-389). Lowe who worked at the High School, speaks of how over the years he had received many calls from furious parents whose daughters had photos pop up after a breakup with an old boyfriend. This time, however, he knew he had a much bigger

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

Back then there was usually just gossip and telling people lies about others. There were always groups of girls talking about rumors and talking about other girls they didn’t like. One day all senior students were just getting back from their lunch walking through the back gate. Once most of the students got back into campus a fight between two girls on the side of the road. While fighting, the girls were screaming and cursing at eachother talking about why they were telling rumors about each other. One girl then backed off and told the other girl that she never even said anything about her in the first place and that the other girl is the one that started all of the drama on twitter. This shows that people online or at school can spread a rumor saying that other people are saying things about people when in reality nothing was said. This may be considered harassment because it causes drama between individuals which can end up having a violent outcome. Nowadays it is more common for females to have more issues with bullying and harassment. One of the apps that usually gets girls in trouble is snapchat because people can snapshot images of girls and send it around to other people. Snapchat is a social media where you can send a photo for a certain amount of seconds and if a girl were to send an inappropriate photo someone can be fast enough to snapshot. Although people shouldn’t be sending inappropriate pictures in the first place, people do make mistakes in sending them. One mistake like that can start something big if a pictures gets in the wrong hands. Anything that you post or send out on the internet stays there

Parents also need to educate themselves about the problem of "sexting", including the potential issues of this behavior, and the resources which can help them address the issue with their children. (Social Policy Law, 2015)

Selina’s Atlantic article takes the story of a sexting scandal in Louisa, VA to make broader claims about sexting. During the discussion of this article we focused on a variety of reasons for sexting. Such reasons include sharing pictures with a trusted partner and believing that everybody is sexting, thus there is a lack of shame among peers. Additionally, sexting is perceived to be the social norm in high school, thus creating the notion that if you do not sext you are in the wrong and considered to be weird. With such motivations, kids and teenagers do not think about the potential repercussions. However, at least 20 states have passed legislation addressing sexting, but the problem is that these laws do not allow for nuance. As such, teens are labeled as sex

Social media has become an outlet for teenagers to communicate constantly, monitor each other’s lives, and control what they want others to see. As social media is becoming more and more popular, more teenage moral panics are occurring. A moral panic is defined as the “fear of a new technology’s or cultural form’s negative impact outside of parental control.” (Jackson) Throughout these past few years, there have been an endless amount of teenage moral panics. Snapchat is an application that has caused a great amount of controversy. With the Snapchat application, you get to control how long the person you send a photo to can view that photo before it disappears. The problem with this is that you can take a snapshot of the photo before it disappears. Snapchat has become to be a teenage moral panic; more specifically Snapchat “sexting”, which is “the act of sending sexual messages and pictures to another person through phones or the internet.”(Klower) On Snapchat parents cannot control what their teenagers are sending and to who their teenagers are sending pictures and videos to. Therefore, teenagers feel a sense of privacy, and use the application to sext, which can lead to various negative behaviors.

One serious issue is sexting, Sexting among teens is not only illegal, but harmful and dangerous among the sender and the receiver. Both are held responsible for child pornography and can be dealt serious consequences. Sexting causes an increase in teen suicides, anxiety self-esteem and involves pressure meaning another forum cyberbullying. Exposing these pornographic photos will not only stress the deliverer but lead to sexual harassment in conclusion.

We live in a generation where it has become common to send inappropriate pictures to people who we have just met. We live in a generation where we are so dependent on technology that it is as addictive as a drug. Fellow students, let me ask you all this question, would you want to see our future generation, our future leaders, and our future role models acting like this? What is this world coming to?! In order to prevent this, I firmly believe that the correct and safe use of social media must be taught in schools.

Two years ago the word sexting did not exist. The combination of the words “sex” and “text” is now a term that is heavily discussed and causes issues for parents, students, educators, and law enforcement. Although there is no legal definition of sexting, it generally refers to writing sexually explicit messages, taking sexually explicit photos of themselves or others in their peer group and technologically transmitting those photos and/or messages to their peers. Now many people don’t know the problems associated with sexting. Most of these problems occur when one or all parties are minors. When a minor is involved there can be serious consequences that can follow a person for a life time.