Sexting: A problem for teens

by Madison Gates

You hear your phone vibrate, you’ve got a text, Who’s it from? Your mind is racing. I hope it’s from him, or hope it’s from her, you think to yourself. Quickly, you look is it a funny picture, a FWD, or just your mom checking up on you? It’s none of these things, it’s a picture though. Yeah, one of those pictures. Should you save it to your phone? Or delete it right now? Thousands of thoughts rush to your head. Should I tell someone? Or not? I promise I wouldn’t show anyone, and they believed me.

Those are just some of the thoughts that very many high school teenagers throuoghout the country have every day. The cause of this? “Sexting.” What is sexting? It’s sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, mostly between mobile phones, but also the internet.

Teens that do this and send them digitally to another cell phone may be engaging in an illegal activity. Child pornography laws exist to protect children from sexual predators and sexual exploitation. It’s illegal to take those sorts of pictures if you’re under the age. However anyone, regardless of age can be charged with this offense. The only thing that matters is the age of the person in the photo.

“People shouldn’t do it,” said Logan McDaniel, a freshman here at PCHS. “People get pressured, that’s why they do it,” stated Briana Pearcy, also a freshman.

Based on the statistics, 20% of teenagers overall have sent or posted a nude semi nude picture of themselves, that’s one in every five people! From those results, 22% of girls have, 18% of boys, and 11% of teenagers 13-16 years old. The percentages of teens still sending them is even worse. Overall, 39% of all teens are still sending them, 37% of girls, 40% of boys.

Some teens don’t even know the person there sending it too, 15% of teens who sexted only knew the person online. 48% of teens have received sexts. 71% of girls and 67% of boys have sent or posted sexually suggestive content to their boyfriend, or girlfriend. 51% of girls and only 18% of boys sexted because they were pressured to do so. This is a problem for not just PCHS students but for all teenagers around the country. For help and more information on the topic visit www.pcsndreams.com , or www.associatedcontent.com.