How to talk to teens about nudes and online safety
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Teens may have sexted more during the pandemic, and the fallout can be intense.
Updated March 16, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. EDT | Published March 16, 2022 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
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During months or even years of remote schooling, teenagers turned to technology to keep their social lives humming. And whether parents knew it, they used it to explore their sexualities, too.
Preliminary research suggests that teens sexted or sent sexually explicit images, videos or messages electronically more than ever during the pandemic, according to family advocacy organization Common Sense Media. Now that teens are back in the classroom, they’re confronting head-on the risks and rewards of a romantic life lived online. A survey of sexting research in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 2018 found that a quarter of teens had received a sext, while about 15 percent had sent one. And that was before coronavirus confined many teens to their homes.
The desire to see and send photos of naked bodies is totally normal, said Devorah Heitner, the founder of family advocacy organization Raising Digital Natives. Teens are no exception, but they are particularly vulnerable to the dangers that come with sharing or receiving sensitive images. Once a teen hits “send,” it’s tough to control where the sext ends up, whether that’s in the hands of cruel classmates or strangers online.
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Teens’ growing reliance on social media exposes them to more predators: From 2019 to 2020, reports of adults enticing minors online doubled to about 38,000 from 19,000, according to data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Sexts could lead to cyberbullying, privacy violations and blackmailing, experts say. And the social stigma of sexting often leads communities to punish victims of sexting violations more harshly than offenders while insufficient sex education leaves teens confused about consent.
“I don’t suggest locking up a 13-year-old the first time they experiment with this behavior, but there has to be a way to respond, especially for middle school kids who got so impaired by the pandemic in their social development the last few years,” Heitner said.
To parents, tech may seem like the problem, but it can also be part of the solution. Some apps give parents visibility into their children’s’ online activity, and a new feature on Apple devices prompts minors before they send or receive nude images. But more important than phone settings is talking to your teens about sexting and what role they want technology to play in their relationships.
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Here’s what every parent needs to know.
For minors, sexting is illegal
Sending or receiving explicit photos of people under 18 is child pornography under federal law — even if you’re both minors and the exchange was consensual. Teen sexting is rarely treated as a criminal offense, said Carrie Goldberg, a New York City-based attorney at C.A. Goldberg, who specializes in sexual privacy violations, but both parties open themselves to legal trouble. (To read about sexting laws in your state, check out this fact sheet from the Cyberbullying Research Center.)
Set digital boundaries and talk about tech’s role in relationships
Teens shouldn’t have to navigate this tricky topic alone. As a parent, let them know you’ll be spot-checking their phones and other devices, then do so at unpredictable intervals, said Lexx Brown-James, a sex therapist and educator.
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If you have Apple devices and Family Sharing set up, you can turn on alerts in your child’s Messages app that warn them before sending or receiving nude photos. Photos containing nudity appear blurred before they deliver, Apple says, and minors get a prompt asking whether they want to view or send the photo or alert a trusted adult instead. (Apple analyzes images right on the devices, it says, so the company doesn’t have access to the photos themselves.)
You can also set up a content-monitoring system such as Bark, which scans a variety of apps for what it calls “worrisome content” such as bullying, depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, violence and sexual content, and flags it to parents. Here’s a list of apps and devices Bark supports. Make sure to disclose to your child what you’re monitoring, experts advise.
Next, help your teen set some digital boundaries, Brown-James said. Is sexting allowed in your household — and what should the consequence be for breaking that rule?
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A teenager’s brain is different from an adult’s, which can make it harder for them to weigh payoffs and consequences, Brown-James said. Helping them think through the reasons they want to sext and the potential repercussions will set them up to make better decisions, she said.
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Of course, this means acknowledging there are benefits to sexting, she noted: It’s fun to feel attractive, get your crush’s attention, admire your own body and see other people’s. Validating these feelings is more realistic than pretending they don’t exist, she said.
Teens also need straightforward information about the risks of sexting. Goldberg said her firm has served hundreds of clients — some as young as 11 — who have been blackmailed, cyberbullied or otherwise had their privacy violated after sharing nude images of themselves. People frequently pass along nudes without permission from the sender. Predators use nudes to extort victims, threatening to release the photos to friends or parents. Once photos have spread on social media, tech companies can be slow to take them down, Goldberg said. (Although, Google has a tool that lets minors and their guardians request the removal of photos from the search engine’s image results.)- https://rentry.co/mpoe2
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