Teenage Social Networking and Cell Phone Use
What Parents Need To Know
by Julie Jorgensen
After reading an article in the Omaha World Herald about teenagers sending pictures of a topless 15-year-old girl from cell phone to cell phone at a Salem, New Hampshire, high school, I was dismayed at the blasé attitude of the teenagers questioned. Even more appalling was the fact that this was not an isolated incident. The staff at the New Hampshire high school confiscated the phone in question and those of the other students involved. What they found were several more pictures of naked (or nearly naked) girls. Two weeks later authorities had to face a similar incident at a nearby school, but this time the photographs involved a teenage boy. What none of these teens realized was the long-term consequences of such behavior, including that any dissemination of inappropriate photographs of someone under the age of 16 can be considered by law to be the distribution of child pornography.
What is even more astonishing is that these are not isolated incidents. Fox News reported recently that this type of behavior is part of a national trend. After a similar situation in our school system, one Garden County High School senior commented, “Everybody does it.” According to national statistics, that’s true. One out of five teenagers surveyed (20%) have sent or posted nude pictures of themselves online or sent one to a friend via cell phone. Almost a third of teens have received such images. Unfortunately, there are no statistics on how many of those images have been forwarded to other cell phones, or copied and posted to social networking sites.
Teenagers don’t seem to realize the gravity of posting or sending such images. The digital world does not represent reality—and there seems to be no connection to family values and online ethics or morals. However, once released in “cyberspace”, these images are irretrievable. The audience is no longer limited to those for whom the photo was intended; the images are out there forever. They’re available to anyone: colleges and universities, future employers, and even to sexual predators.
Parents need educate themselves about how teens are using social networking sites and cell phones to “hook up”. Schools can only do so much. Rules and regulations about cell phone use and the dangers implicit in unmonitored or irresponsible social networking can’t curtail this type of behavior outside of school. Parents must talk to their children about these issues, monitor their online/cell phone behavior, place limits or restrictions on “texting” and phone cameras, and create guidelines about the responsible and ethical use of digital technology. Whether you know it or not, open communication and parental expectations are the predominant influences on our youth’s behavior and social mores.
Garden County Schools is taking a proactive approach to this issue. Administration and the school board continue to evaluate and revise acceptable use policies, including those dealing with cell phone use. In development as a required course for all freshmen is an on-line course dealing with Internet safety issues, social networking, cyber bulling, and digital communication. The school will continue to address the pertinent and timely issues dealing with the ethical use of the technology that is so readily available to today’s “digital natives”.
For more information on Internet Safety, download this brochure:
