Is Your Teen Sexting?

Many parents of tweens and teens are accustomed to seeing a phone attached to their kid—like an appendage. It’s so common, in fact, that it can be easy to forget that texts and emails can wreak havoc if things go unexpectedly wrong. Case in point: Sexting—the sending or sharing of sexually explicit images or content via a cellphone or other device—which is becoming increasingly common among tweens and teens. A JAMA Pediatrics report estimates that 14.8- percent of kids ages 12-17 have sent sexts while 27.4- percent have received them. And these numbers continue to rise.

For example, Julia*, a former Manhattan technology teacher, saw fallout firsthand when her (then) 17-year-old daughter, Emma, got tangled up in a digital nightmare. Emma’s boyfriend had talked Emma into sending nude photos of herself. Eventually, they broke up and Emma started dating a guy named “Eric.” When the ex-boyfriend found out and was infuriated, he proceeded to send a nude photo of Emma to all the “Erics” on Emma’s Facebook page. To complicate things further, one “Eric” was the ex-boyfriend of Emma’s older sister. He notified the family. “Your heart races 100 miles a minute and you’re terrified because this could ruin you. It could literally ruin you,” Julia says.

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The Consequences of Sexting

Situations like this one are embarrassing and horrifying for everyone involved—and the ramifications can also be extreme. In many states, sharing or possessing nude or partially nude images of minors is considered child pornography and can be a felony—even if exchanges are consensual. Another danger is that these images could be picked up and distributed by strangers. Hackers and cyberbullies can cause great emotional harm (or worse) if they get access to a naked picture of a tween or teen.

Elizabeth K. Englander, Ph.D., professor of psychology and founder of Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State University, says although these repercussions can be alarming, emphasizing the worst possible outcome isn’t helpful. “There’s a real downside to preaching consequences that are designed to be very frightening, that are very rare,” she says. To maintain credibility when educating kids, she suggests the “bad things can happen, but they don’t necessarily happen” approach.

And it seems that many teens do understand the risks of sexting. One Brooklyn high schooler explained, “It’s always done on Snapchat because it’s impossible to screenshot a picture without letting anyone know.” (Caveat: Someone can use another phone to take a picture of the image on the first phone). Teens also understand that sexting mishaps could lead to them losing certain opportunities—which happens in about 2- percent of cases, according to Dr. Englander.

In Julia’s case, her daughter is now “more cautious, more tech-savvy in understanding that if it’s out there, it’s out there forever.” Emma’s younger siblings learned from her mistake, too. As Julia puts it: “Do you want the whole world to know? Then you don’t put that on the phone because there’s always that chance.”