Teens Online And on Cells But Not on Their Guard
Group Calls Attention To Safety Concerns
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Thursday, July 9, 2009
When Yuri Lopez saw her 9-year-old friend with a cellphone, she immediately wanted one.
"You don't need it," her parents told her. She would have to wait until her 16th birthday, which turned out to be not so bad, she said.
As her friends received their cellphones and created profiles on social networking Web sites, they also exchanged stories of annoying phone calls, text messages or e-mails from strangers and acquaintances.
Lopez was able to steer clear of trouble.
"I never had to go through that," said Lopez, a rising senior at J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church. "My peers kind of taught me because they went through it."
Others haven't been so fortunate.
Last year, Jessica Logan, then an 18-year-old senior at Sycamore High School in Ohio, sent a nude photo of herself to her boyfriend's cellphone. The picture was forwarded to hundreds of students, and the harassment she suffered in public and via phone calls and text messages led to her suicide.
Cox Communications and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children say they want teenagers, with support from their parents, to become proactive in protecting themselves from harmful situations while online or using a cellphone.
Last week in the District, at their fifth annual National Teen Summit on Internet Safety, they released a survey that examined the online and cellphone behavior of 13- to 18-year-olds.
Nearly three-quarters of the teens surveyed have an online profile on a social networking site, with most of them containing personal information and pictures of themselves and friends. Ninety-one percent of the teens surveyed have an e-mail address, and 73 percent have a cellphone.
About a fifth of teens said they have engaged in "sexting," sending, receiving or forwarding sexually explicit pictures through text messages or e-mails. More than one-third said they knew of a friend who had sent or received sexually suggestive messages.
Most senders said these messages are primarily sent to a boyfriend or girlfriend, but about 10 percent of senders said they have sent sexually explicit messages to people they do not know.
