Teens who are 'Sexting'

With this week talking about cell phones I saw an article about an ‘epidemic’ that is happening among teenagers and their cell phones…SEXTING. What exactly is sexting you may ask? It is sharing sexually explicit videos, photos, and chat by cell phone or online. It is becoming a more common thing for the teen generation and even younger to be doing even though it is starting to come with some harsh penalties.

A 16-year old teen boy named Sammy, from the San Francisco Bay Area said he had shared nude pictures of himself with his girlfriends and nude pictures of other people he sent on after getting them from another friend. He said he didn’t realize that other young people from Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania had faced felony charges for doing the same thing.
Research shows that teen’s brains aren’t quite mature enough to make good decisions consistently. They don’t think that this could be potentially harmful for them to participate in and possibly even affect their future. It could get into the wrong hands like potential employees or college admissions office. We have talked about this previously in class that once something is put out on the internet it NEVER goes away or that no matter what you have your Facebook privacy setting on someone will be able to see it and it could harm you down the road.

However, sexting doesn't stop with teenagers. Young adults are even more likely to have sexted; one-third of them said they had been involved in sexting, compared with about one-quarter of teenagers.

In an article from CBSnews.com I read first hand just how serious the law is taking on the subject of ‘sexting’. At the beginning of this year three teenage girls in a western Pennsylvania school had allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves to three male classmates that are charged with child pornography. The problem here is because the girls are 14 and 15 years old where the boys are 17 years old. When I read that I could not believe what I was reading. When I was that age I was worried about what to wear to school and boys still had cooties. Times are changing and it has only been 8 years since I was that age. What the heck is to come for us in the next 8 years? Another example is an eighth grader from Texas spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a picture of a nude female on his cell phone.

I think parents these days need to carefully monitor what their teens are doing. Especially since kids these days are getting cell phones at such an early age. My younger sister is 13 years old and a seventh grader and she still doesn’t have a cell phone. Thank God! I was a senior in high school when I got a cell phone and I survived. Your teen might kick, scream, and yell at you and say you are invading their privacy but like I stated above and research shows that teens don’t always use the best of their judgment.

In my defense…my Facebook status update…?

Who cares about your Facebook status updates?!?!

(Top 25 Facebook status updates…Funny)

I don’t know about you guys but I have some friends on my Facebook account that will constantly tell you what they are doing, eating, watching on TV, or listening to on their IPods…like who cares that much!?! Maybe they have nobody else to talk to and tell them what they are doing or maybe they actually think that people care that they just ate an entire pizza by themselves and are now going to sit down and watch Transformers 2! I barely update my status each week let alone each action I make. I just don’t care that much about what my fellow Facebookers had for dinner that I won’t bother them with the fact that I just ate some chicken tortilla soup and am now catching up on the latest Modern Family episode.

However, in 19-year old Rodney Bradford’s case his status update wondering where his IHOP food was saved him from serving some hard time in jail. It was on the night of October 17 at 11:49 am that he updated his Facebook status asking where his pancakes where that was his lifesaver. The next day he was arrested as a suspect in a robbery at the Farragut House in Brooklyn, where he lives that the status became his alibi. He told his lawyer about the entry he had made in his Facebook account that took place during the suspected robbery that he was accused of committing. The district attorney then subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the status was written from a computer at Mr. Bradford’s address where he lives. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.

I am not so sure about this case because who is to say that Rodney Bradford is the one that wrote the status update. He could have easily thought ahead (although unlikely) and had someone post the status update for him. I mean whenever I use my boyfriends computer I never click on ‘log out’ I just close the browser and then later on he will get on his computer to log in to his Facebook account and it will automatically bring up my account. It will sometimes even be hours before he will go on after I have gone on and it still lets you into my account. He always jokes that he is going to put something dumb as my status update. When I saw Mr. Bradford’s story in the newspaper I thought I cannot believe that he is getting off the hook because of Facebook. Facebook really is taking over if it’s counting as an alibi in the court system. This is the first case that a Facebook status has been used to get someone out of trouble. It was a simple robbery charge but what is next? Could Facebook be used in a lot of future trials and cases where something more serious has happened? How can they prove that it was the actual owner of the account and not just some hacker…or a boyfriend that came along and put something because I never officially clicked ‘log-out’. It’s actually kind of scary to think of I think. When I signed up for my Facebook account in September back in 2005 I never thought that I was getting myself into something that would grow this popular.

Do you think that Facebook should be used as alibis in the courts? Is it reliable?

Facebook Matchmaker?

With the growth and popularity of Facebook these days, it is about time you start hearing about the lost loves rekindled or the new flames that arise out of the social networking sites. As we all know the majority of Facebook users are now over the age of 35 and some of them are looking for love. They are able to find old friends from college or even as far back as some of their old high school boyfriends. They search for them, friend them, message them, and then marry them?!

I was watching Good Morning America, yes I watch it every morning-it’s how I stay up to date, and they had this couple on there about how they used to date back in high school and then many years later found each other on Facebook and eventually got married. It actually all started as a dare from a friend to Facebook message the first boy she had ever kissed. He messaged her back and the romance took off from there. There is a name for all this now called retrosexuals. The term means people who are reaching back into their own lives and reconnecting with someone from their past via a social networking site. I think Facebook is a better way to find someone from your past or for a relationship. Think about it, you have to friend request them; they in return have to accept your friend request and then you can start chatting. It’s not like MySpace or some other site where just anyone can see your profile and start talking to you. I mean you sign up for those and then you wonder how you get so many creeps in your life! It doesn’t always happen like that but I see Facebook as a safer way to network with people for future relationships. Also, finding someone from your past is a pretty easy thing as well on Facebook. You can search for them by where they went to school, what town they may be in or you might even find them on accident through a friend you already have and they are friends with them.