Wired Safety Bear
Last month, I shared a panel at Future Web with WiredSafety’s Parry Aftab. As I was new to her work and live in DC, she invited me to her annual Wired Kids Summit, which happened today.
Unfortunately, I could only attend briefly this afternoon. I caught the tail end of a “grown ups” panel with representatives from Facebook, Nickelodeon, Disney, and various law enforcement professionals, but mostly I was trying too hard to cool down from my walk through the 90 degree DC air to pay my best attention.
I heard a lot of questions for the Facebook representative – no surprise, given yesterday’s announcement of their renewed commitment to users’ control over privacy and identity (optimistically put, I know). One very young man (10, 11?) pointed out that pornographers are sending out friend requests that (if one accepts) result in lurid ads showing up on one’s page. Apparently, this is a big deal for kids who think it’s cool to collect thousands of “friends.” Our Facebook rep reminded us that they want kids to use the “report” button, available all over the site, when this happens and emphasized that it is “not rude to turn down a Facebook friend request” from strangers. Sage words.
After lunch, a panel of WiredSafety TeenAngels presented their own research and new PSAs on teen sexting behavior and attitudes. For anyone who hasn’t been paying attention to what kids are doing with technology these days, sexting is (broadly speaking) sending sexually explicit, nude or semi-nude, images, usually of and between minors via text, instant message, email, social networking sites, etc. Obviously, this is linked to abusive behavior, blackmail, ostracism, and a whole lot of ugly no kid deserves.
I don’t have their numbers, but here are some things I learned from their survey results:
- ~5% of the 10-12 years old surveyed had sent or received sexts. This number gets close to 20% for respondents approaching 18 years old
- Girls send the most sexts, boys receive the most sexts.
- Sexting is very often an impulsive behavior. It starts with snap decisions, rather than premeditation.
- Most respondents think youth are very uninformed about the legal and social consequences of sexting.
- Most respondents didn’t think sexting was preventable. Why? Rebellious teen culture is one reason.
