GOSSIP: Moms! This Is For You (MUST READ)
It’s no secret: teens are sexting!
However, we found some tidbits from a recent sexting study that’s very interesting.
The study of more than 23,000 students, says teens who are involved were more likely to report being psychologically distressed, depressed or even suicidal. 13% of teen involved in sexting reported a suicide attempt during that period compared with 3% of non-sexting teens.
One cause may be that once a sexy picutere message is sent, it gets passed on to other students!
10% of boys and 11% of girls said they had sent one of these images in the past year, BUT only 6% of males and 4% of females said they sent a pic of themselves!
Gay, lesbian, bisexual other or not sure — were more likely to be involved in sexting.
How can you fix it?
Marian Merritt, Internet safety advocate for Norton has some suggestions:
“I encourage parents to treat a kid’s cellphone as a computer: thinking of securing, protecting and limiting it.
If that phone is a smartphone, password protect it. Check your online statement, to see if your child is sending a lot of photo messages.
Charge the phone in the kitchen, some central location, so it’s not on their pillow, buzzing late at night with text messages.”
Do these things and it may help your teen from sexting, and possibly being cyber bullied!