The Sexting Phenomenon Essay

Kate Hafner’s article, “Texting May Be Taking a Toll” claims that texting is an issue to teenagers around the world. As an illustration, Hafner starts the article by identifying that teenagers send a drastic amount of texts in their everyday lives. according to the Nielsen Company, “American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008”(1). This is just one of the examples of many that portrays teenagers around the world send many text messages. Along with teenagers sending many texts a day, hafner also shows in this article that texting is affecting teenager's life in many different ways for example, preventing teenagers' way of becoming independent. Just as professor Turkle presented,

Twenge argues that as a result of the introduction of the iPhone, today’s teenagers are safer since they stay at home more often, and thus are less independent and radical than the teenagers of the past few decades. She endorses this argument with statistics that suggest that this generation of adolescents is less social, as seen in decreased dating, sexual activity, and teenage birthrate trends. She provides readers with the fact that “…only about 56 percent of high-school seniors in 2015 went out on dates; for Boomers and Gen Xers, the number was about 85 percent.” However, Twenge overlooks the fact that there are new risks to the safety of teenagers; there are many online predators masquerading themselves to lure teenagers and these teenagers have also become less worldly-wise. She only discusses statistics that work for her argument and does not consider other implications that the introduction of the smartphone has instigated. Thus, her argument is insufficient since she does not consider other aspects of adolescents’ safety. Moreover, Twenge is repetitive in her emphasis on the rates of unhappiness and depression in youth that result from using smartphones. Nevertheless, she conversely supplies only one study to support these claims: The Monitoring the Future survey is a long-term question-based study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Using this study as her only piece of evidence does not effectively support her argument since this survey is funded for the purpose of studying drug abuse and it is unclear whether it is focused only on this purpose or on other aspects of teenagers’ lives. To strengthen her analysis, she must warrant her claim with additional data from studies that approach the problem in different ways. Furthermore, Twenge claims that the smartphone has resulted in

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 an article titled “Why Kids Sext” written by Hanna Rosin the stories are told of teenagers who have had recent experiences with sexting. The article speaks about a High School in Virginia where 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”(qtd. in Why Kids Sext). Major Donald 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 problem when he began his investigation. Once the matter was

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

Teen sexting violates an adolescent's privacy and ruins their reputation which in turn affects their future. Due to the fact the adolescent’s frontal cortex is underdeveloped the way they make decisions is different from an adult (). Because of this the adolescent lacks the ability to assess the long term consequences of sexting. They are not able to see the major risk at hand which is the reality that there is no guarantee that the intimate photo or video will remain in the recipient’s hands. Therefore, an adolescent’s

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)

In the scene from the boys’ viewpoint, I used posture and movement to show the relaxed and bored behaviour by standing with my shoulders slumped, hunched over back as I boringly stared at my phone whilst I noisily chewed gum. Aastha was positioned in the centre middle as a leader whereas I, Leah and Ceri stood around as her followers, to show Aastha had the authority in the group. Suddenly, Aastha shouted, “Oi, lads get here.” causing us to attentively traced our eyes to her before we eagerly strode forward to get a peek at the image on her phone. There is a pause of two seconds before Ceri and I broke into a cacophony of excitement, rapidly bashing movements into each other and wildly waved our arms with wide grins to emphasise our rowdy, obnoxious behaviour. This showed that boys aren’t afraid of being shy about their honest thoughts as we ogled the image and made tactless comments on the ‘Hotness’ of the girl. However, the girls’ scene juxtaposed this by Leah stood in an upright position with Aastha, Ceri and I kneeled down to show the hierarchy and superiority of Leah in the group. We were all huddled together stared directly forward and mimed makeup actions, to create a smaller proxemic gap and reflect how as girls we like to be together in tight packs; more secretive and judgemental in fear of our reputation being ruined. When I first saw the image, I showed my shock through a few second

“Do you ever put that phone of yours down?” I hear my mom shriek day after day. It’s true, 14-17 year-old teens usually send and receive up to 60 text messages a day. Phones and other electronics have recently become popular during the past few years, much like Apple, who are constantly releasing their newest iPhone to the world. Ray Bradbury, author of many short stories involving technology foresaw these events.

Everyone wants to stay connected in each others lives by never missing a beat. More like never missing a text message in this day and age. Life is constantly finding its way to become full of responsibilities with little time to take a break as it is. Texting my family and friends is easier to respond to when I 'm taking care of my daughter and studying for school. Even a phone call seems better so I can multitask, cleaning the house or driving while talking on the phone. Communication is an essential key and important human need. By using technology, there is a deeper connection to communicating than some acknowledge.

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.

Cyberbullying is one of the main issues overtaking society today in the opinions of seventy six percent of people from the ages of fourteen to twenty four. Fifty six percent of the people in this age group are the victims of cyberbullying through both digital and social media. Another problem, according to seventy one percent of people, is sexting, when a person receives or sends inappropriate sexual messages. One out of every three people suffers from sexting habits, and fifty one percent of people from the ages of fourteen to twenty four have admitted to it. Ten percent of these people had not met the recipient of the messages in person, and about half of the people were under pressure to send these violating messages. Digital abuse in relationships is a problem that reaches forty-one percent of couples. Three in ten people are checked on through the media by their partner, and twenty seven percent of the people who are in a relationship have been forced to share the messages they have sent or received with their partner. Last but not least, one out of every two people has observed discrimination through language on social networks. Fifty one percent of people think this is wrong, but forty-six percent of people think it is okay as long as the sender makes it clear that they are joking. Similarly, fifty four percent of people believe close friends can

Although sexting is a bigger issue if underage teens are participating, it’s not just teens that are getting in trouble with the law for sexting. A psychologist and New York author has conducted a survey of 323 anonymous volunteers to explore their attitudes toward the sexting experience. “Basically, sexters feel very positively towards sexting, whereas non-sexters think it’s a terrible idea” “People [aged] 13 to 19 are actively involved in sexting, but those [between] 20 to 26 are even more involved.” In June