Why kids self-destruct with cell phones and online.
source: http://www.slate.com/id/2237706/
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- atomiclegion
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Last week, Hope's suicide became the second with a clear link to sexting and the peer torture that can follow from it. At the end of seventh grade last spring, Hope sent a photo of her breasts to a boy she liked, and the picture went viral at her school. "Tons of people talk about me behind my back and I hate it because they call me a whore!" Hope wrote in her journal before her death. Jessie Logan, who was 18 and lived outside Cincinnati, hanged herself last July after nude photos she sent to her boyfriend circulated widely among teenagers she knew. What explains this awful chain of events that leads to tragedy? Is this just the usual bullying, only with different tools, or a distinct harm unto itself? And are these isolated cases or legitimate cause for the wider uproar over sexting?
As a grown-up and a parent, at first I was skeptical about how prevalent anything this blindly risky could really be. But I'm starting to think I was wrong. In three polls that have been conducted on the prevalence of sexting, the numbers are fairly high. The latest, which looks methodologically solid, is an MTV-Associated Press poll reported last week of about 1,450 teens and young adults aged 14 to 24. More than one-quarter said they'd been involved in sexting in some way. Ten percent had sent out naked pictures of themselves on a cell phone or online. And 17 percent of the kids who'd received such a picture reported passing it along to someone else.
Those results match up fairly well with research by Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, academics who direct the Cyberbullying Research Center, based on their 2007 survey of about 1,900 middle-schoolers. About 12 percent of the kids in that survey said they'd taken a picture of someone and posted it online without permission. That's a lower number than the MTV-AP poll, and the photos involved weren't necessarily sexually compromising. But these kids are younger, and the data was collected two years ago. So, again, dismaying. "Kids do it without thinking," Hinduju says of sexting. "It's a courtship ritual between boyfriend and girlfriend. Or in a more severe situation, there is coercion or trickery to get the picture. But it's becoming commonplace behavior, even if it seems moronic to you and me. We're talking about the neurological immaturity of youth."
http://www.slate.com/id/2237706/
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- WTF, Sex and Love, Sex, Cell Phones, 9 more
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sugarlilly
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if parents did their job this wouldn't be an issue. instead let's leave them all in front of the TV and hope they make it out alive.
- 2 years ago
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sugarlilly
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EmperorThan
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Uhhh... I think these cases are not only statistically insignificant but total bullshit altogether.
Teens have always become sad and teens have always committed suicide. It happens, always has happened, and always will happen. No matter what technology exists. It has nothing to do with the teen brain and teen hormones.
Not to mention kids have ALWAYS had SEX not "sexting" I'm talking REAL SEX. Kids have always and will always do that too. The average age all boys first have sex is 16.8 years old and girls 17.4 years old. It happens. Has always happened, and will always happen no matter the technology. In fact I'd RATHER the kids Sext than having sex and possibly ruining their lives and their parents fucking lives with a baby in junior high.
- 2 years ago
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EmperorThan
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2helenahandbasket
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We're reaping what we've sown. Our society is permeated with sexuality. Television, movies and music would have us believe that if we are not sexual in some way we are losers. Our young people are learning through the media that sex is the be-all end-all of our lives. They think that in order to be cool and normal they have to prove their sexual worth through some means and our young girls see themselves just as sexual objects. Of course young girls are going to "sext". They think no one will like them if they don't.
- 2 years ago
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2helenahandbasket
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William_Spencer
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People were finding ways to sexually exploit themselves before the tech in our day. It has little to do with how they're doing so much as why and what drives them to do it. Case in point; children should be educated at an early age to see that making wise decisions leads to better outcomes.
On the point about the girl: Things she failed to realize,
1. He's a boy! Some girl shows him her tits on his phone, of course he's going to show it off to his friends.
2. If it's in digital format it can be in anyplace at any time in infinite quantity. Why risk it?
- 2 years ago
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William_Spencer
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royulery
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oh the pain of growing from a child to an adult. everybody has a hard time but some social errors are unforgivable to the self. i carry the scars of teenage transgressions and even though i didn't know better, my cheeks flush red with the memory to this day. a powerful time, i lost so many teenage friends to suicide mostly due to police involvement over pot. self termination due to sexual shame i haven't experienced but i have over cheating.
- 2 years ago
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royulery
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unclecharlie
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Parents are oblivious to this- and the kids are letting these thing rule their lives. Parents need to step in and take these things away from them. And, yes, I don't feel bad at all if thekids doing the "sexting" get prosecuted and labeled a sexual offender. Kids need to THINK before they do such idiotic things. If you want to tell a boy you like him, do it by TELLING him- not showing him your tits! When I was a kid.... :)
- 2 years ago
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unclecharlie
