Another form of cyberbullying that has not been discussed is that of sexting. Sexting occurs when one person texts sexually explicit content, whether it be a written message or an image, to another. If you look back at my first post on this blog, you can see some of the statistics I put up about teenagers and their mobile phone usage. Fact: teenagers text. A lot. This can lead to many different issues (high phone bills, antisocial behavior, etc.) but there is one that may not cross the mind of many parents—sexting. The majority of parents do not believe their child has been involved in sexting at all, whether it is sending a sext, receiving one, or even being the victim in one. Many times, sexting occurs between two people who are involved as romantic partners.
While this is not necessarily a problem, what happens when they break up? Somtimes these messages are kept in between the two people involved; sometimes they are not. The sender has no way to prevent the receiver from forwarding the sexts (in this case, they are usually x-rated images of the sender) onto other people via text message or email. Additionally, this does not have to happen after a couple has broken up, or even if they were ever together—once the images have entered cyberspace, they are impossible to control. The Pew Internet and American Life Project did a study on teens and sexting in 2009 and found that it is becoming increasingly common for these sexts to be used as a type of “relationship currency. ” They often are sent when one person is interested in beginning a relationship with another, and they act as an opener or a demonstration of interest. While I find this hard to digest, we were all teens once, and it certainly can be an age at which one is particularly vulnerable.
A tragic example of this is of a 13-year-old girl who hanged herself after photographs of her, topless, circulated her middle school and then the local high school, and even neighboring schools. Apparently, she had sent a picture to a boy she had liked; someone else had intercepted the phone when the picture was sent, and the rest is history. She was taunted and mobbed in the hallways, and the school, upon finding out what happened, suspended her. She made a mistake, as many teens do, but, as a character in the Facebook movie aptly says, “the Internet is written in ink.” When something is said or shared in cyberspace, it is there forever.
Sexting does affect more than just teenagers, and I will quickly throw in a few examples. For instance, there is Tiger Woods and his various mistresses who came up with sexts from him, proof of their affairs. Then there’s Brett Farve, who has apparently been caught sexting:
Teens’ opinions of sexting vary from one extreme to the other, with some seeing it as “no big deal” to others focusing on the potential consequences, possibly viewing it as illegal. Something that seems very private may not be, for the reasons mentioned above. Sometimes this can be hard for teenagers to even think about, but the prosecution of some teens for child pornography (i.e. sexts) should be something more for them to think about, as it brings a reality to some of the teens’ fears of legal repercussions. Additionally, there was a group of teenage boys who were recently arrested for using text messages to harass another student at their school: this is another instance of cyberbullying. While this is not sexting, it is along a very similar vein, as it uses text messages as a form of harassment.
The harassment from sexting tends to occur outside of the home, often in schools. This increases the risk for many teens because it decreases the knowledge and influence the parents can have. Acknowledging the dangerous growth of sexting, in 2009, the National Crime Prevention Council issued a news release about its dangers. More recently, the FCC announced that it will start to address issues of cyberbullying in schools where the Internet is subsidized by the government. It's a start.
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