If the internet has proven one thing; it's that its taken living vicariously to a whole new level. A long time ago, when a man and woman wanted to get it on but had a lot of distance between them, they'd try something called phone sex. It's worked for couples and it's worked for companies that thrive on that industry. Now, the digital age has taken it to a whole new level. Yes, it does include explicit messaging in chat rooms and conversations through webcams, but no those aren't the levels I'm talking about. You see, the digital age makes it convenient to do "it" anywhere and anytime you like, that's how "sexts" was born.
Sext, from the root of the word, is a combination of sex and texts.
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Sexting is the act in which people exchange messages or pictures containing sexual content. And you don't have to guess that teens are into this as well. Teenagers as young as thirteen have received sexts and because they're kids, they're bound to do something childish with those sexts; like spread them on the internet.
You might recall the incident inolving High School Musical Star vanessa Hudgens. That can happen to any one of the kids involved in sexts. It's probably even worse now because of Facebook. Yes, I'm making this another issue on Facebook. Although it's still a great place to be, it also comes with negative factors (as I've pointed out several times in the past).
When a relationship between teens gets awry or when someone wants to act like a jerk, one of the parties involved can post sext content or an actual photo on Facebook for all their friends to see. That includes every friend, relative, acquiantance or stalker that's in their network of freinds. That's where all the real trouble starts. You can also add the fact that these are teens under the age of 18 sending sexts. So if one of them saves a sext image, then it might as well be considered as illegal material. In addition to "the talk" parents are going to give your kid his first cell phone you're going to have to
teach him about having safe sexts.
There's really no avoiding the issue and you really shouldn't deprive teens of their cell phones. Even the iPhone is getting in on safe sexting, recoginzing the threat to families and students alike.
