Huckleberries Online

Sexting Gives Cops Headaches

Posted by DFO

March 25, 2009 5:30 p.m. • 25 comments

Standing outside of Lewis and Clark High School, freshmen Ashley and Chrissy say they’re all too familiar with classmates asking for nude pictures of them. “It happens, like, everyday,” says Ashley. Indeed, Spokane County Sheriff’s Detective Dave Skogen says the exchange of such digital pictures is occurring all the time in local schools. “I think if we had any idea really how many times this was happening, it would shock everybody in the community,” Skogen says. While the problem is mainly seen at the high school level, Skogen says middle school kids also are “sexting” — taking racy, often nude cell phone photos and sending them to friends/Derek Casanovas, Pacific Northwest Inlander. More here.

Question: Any suggestions re: how best to handle the teen phenomenon know as “sexting”?

25 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Cabbage Boy on March 25 at 4:22 p.m.
Don’t buy them cell phones?
ThomasPaine on March 25 at 4:39 p.m.
Talk to your kids about it. Explain to your child that any/every digital photo will likely end up on the internet, and will stay there forever. When that doesn’t work use a demonstration. Find a picture off the internet of a rather obese person, semi-nude, and photoshop your child’s head onto that body. Then threaten to e-mail this to all their friends. Hopefully that might help it sink in.
JeanieSpokane on March 25 at 4:46 p.m.
ooooo, TP, I really like your suggestion. It will work! They hate that!

I fixed my teen son but good when he was 14 and smoking! He was buying cigs from neighborhood stores. I took his latest school picture, blew it up to fit on the top half of 8x11 paper and posted it at all the stores and every single telephone pole I could. At the stores I typed in huge letters: IT IS ILLEGAL TO SELL CIGARETTES TO THIS MINOR CHILD AND YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED.

It took a couple days, when he flew into the house all upset and wailing “How could you DO this to me!” I just smiled and sighed and continued being his loving mother.
LukeB on March 25 at 5:15 p.m.
CB’s got the right answer … why in the world does anyone, especially a teenager, need a cell phone?
keithincda on March 25 at 5:52 p.m.
Interesting story about this same subject…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29879875/
Charlie on March 25 at 6:24 p.m.
CB’s on the right track, don’t buy the little urchin a cell phone, but if they must have one, get a cheap basic one with no photo capacity.
Liz on March 25 at 7:30 p.m.
I wrote a blog post about this recently when the story broke about Jessie Logan, the gal who committed suicide after photos she sent a soon to be ex circulated around her HS. The issue isn’t controlling cell phone access: that is a band aid.

The answer is addressing why teenagers have so little self respect that they will send pix of themselves like this or request others to do so. Anything else is just a band-aid solution.

As a postscript to my blog post…a few days after my Jessie Logan post published, my stat counter went off the chart with hits from obscure countries. Every single one of them came via a search for “Jessie Logan” or “Jessie Logan naked”…given that people use proxy servers to look at stuff they don’t want to be caught looking at and most of those web proxies funnel your US IP address into a server in some far away land, you figure it out…I was pissed….pissed that people have such a prurient interest in something so very tragic…
hhuseland on March 25 at 8:01 p.m.
Well, I have a few observations about this subject. Charlie’s suggestion about a cheap phone is one. I have a jitterbug phone. It doesn’t take pictures, or allow text messages, It’s just a phone. You can call and received phone calls. that’s all. You sign up for a plan that allows you certain amounts of minutes per month at a nominal rate.

Bottom line tough, is that you are spoiling your child. they do not need any means of communications at school other than between teacher and student. Like in the olden days, one can wait until they get home, whereby they then dominate the home phone. Concerned about your daughter’s first few dates? Loan them your cell phone for the night. Hopefully no pictures will appear.
tarynahecker on March 26 at 6:34 a.m.
I’m with Cabbage. Take their phones away. And the dang video games and Internet, too.
Cabbage Boy on March 26 at 7:11 a.m.
Heh, Charlie and Herb, If they NEED a phone, buy them one that is obviously marketed to the aged, non technical crowd like Herb said. Make sure it has huge buttons and is obviously for the elderly.

They won’t want to be seen using it.
Cabbage Boy on March 26 at 7:14 a.m.
Seriously though, Liz is right. as parents we should be instilling some sense of morality and self worth. But that is always easy in theory, more difficult in reality. I would like to think that my wife and I are doing a great job at this, but the reality is, especially with the oldest, so much is trial and error.

I know the doctors gave us a manual with our first, but I have never been able to find it.
toadman on March 26 at 8:34 a.m.
“Sexting Gives Cops Headaches”

That’s funny, it gives me something else entirely.

“Any suggestions re: how best to handle the teen phenomenon know as “sexting”?”

Yes. Forward them all to me for my expert analysis.

;-)

…I feel like I should apologize for those snarky inappropriate comments, but I sense a need to refrain from doing so as well.
toadman on March 26 at 8:36 a.m.
Why not get them phones that DON’T text? I have a cell phone that is ONLY A PHONE! Also, it’s a “pay as you go” phone from TracFone (what can I say, I’m a cheapskate.). When they run out of minutes, they have to do enough chores to buy more. See? Limited texting, and NO pictures.

…but still forward all those ones I mentioned above to my email address…I’ll analyze them as fast as I can.

;-)

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.