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>About 14% of middle and high school students reported getting a sexually explicit image from someone they were dating, while 11% said they sent one. Around 14

>About 14% of middle and high school students reported getting a sexually explicit image from someone they were dating, while 11% said they sent one. Around 14% of respondents said they had gotten a sexually explicit image from someone they weren’t romantically involved with. It's interesting how facts are used. The above 14% statistics are presented as a way of saying that there's not really a problem. After all, if only 1 in 7 kids is sending explicit imagery, it's not a big problem, right? Putting it another way would be that 1 in 7 teens commits felony possession or distribution of child porn. That's how law enforcement views it in some states! My son is 11, and we haven't broached this specific topic, but we do consistently remind him that he should treat any electronic communication as if he expected it to become public.

i_am_proteus 7y ago
Am I the only one who sees this as kids today using the iPhone for the same thing we used to use the Polaroid for? The technology has changed, but adolescent behavior hasn't.
- jariel 7y ago
  You did not use your polaroid to take naked pics and send them to friends. Moreover, those polaroids were not viewable by the entire world on the internet.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  A 4" square blurry Polaroid picture that can be shown to a select few friends and eventually lost or destroyed has nothing to do with a high resolution image that is trivially forwarded to the entire school by the recipient, acquired via hacking or social engineering, and can be manipulated with photoshop.
  - jseliger 7y ago
    This thing that the doer perceives as harmless could be harmful. How will you know it's harmful? Because we arrest you for doing it! That's how you know it's harmful, because of the consequences we impose.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    A polaroid, or the artful b&w 10x8 developed in photography class can just as easily be passed round half a school in one break or lunch time, or left on teacher's desk. Or sent in to a 1990s Reader's Wives magazine, then publication would have come down to whether they looked school age or not. That it can spread wider, go viral, or be manipulated is a case against any electronic communication in place of paper or film photography. The choice to send it further is the problem not the medium.
    - mikepurvis 7y ago
      Right, but every student getting a glimpse of it as it goes by is completely different from everyone having the full-fidelity copy on their device permanently. And a magazine's editorial board being the gatekeeper on wide distribution is completely different from anyone who has it being able to pull the trigger at any time. If you really think these are in any way the same, you'll be shocked to hear what record companies thought about Napster in the early 2000s. Turns out sharing a digital file and sharing/copying a physical artifact are not even remotely the same. As tech people, we don't get to just wash our hands of these consequences and say that it's down to individual human choices any more than car companies can avoid building in safety features by saying they'd be unnecessary if only people were better drivers.
RHSeeger 7y ago
The people who wrote those laws need a stern talking to. They don't even seem to consider that some teenager could text them a photo of themselves, call the cops, and get them arrested for child pornography. Heck, they could send them a text talking about doing something with them and have the same happen in some states. The laws are exceedingly over-broad.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  The people who wrote those laws are in a care home or dead. The people who haven't bothered to update them need to be talked to.
  - close04 7y ago
    I was always puzzled by how laws that treat cases where the same person is both victim and culprit for the very same thing work. Is a failed suicide treated as attempted murder?
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    It's prosecutors who choose vases to prosecute. Usually prudish, slut-shaming, patriarchal, myaogynistic prosecutors.
    - RHSeeger 7y ago
      The problem is that there will _always_ be prosecutors that abuse their power. It's the nature of people. It just so happens that certain professions abusing their power are far more devastating to the people they impact (lawyers, police, etc). As such, we should be making laws that are harder for them to abuse. We have many "we'll give them more power, so they can use it where needed and just not abuse it" laws that constantly get abused.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lunias 7y ago
Perhaps our prioritization of the creation of tools which enable us to share all of our thoughts and experiences will force us to reflect on our taboos as they become increasingly public. I for one, hope that people begin to realize that these taboos are not that infrequent, nor are they particularly harmful.

i_am_proteus 7y ago

Am I the only one who sees this as kids today using the iPhone for the same thing we used to use the Polaroid for? The technology has changed, but adolescent behavior hasn't.

jariel 7y ago
You did not use your polaroid to take naked pics and send them to friends. Moreover, those polaroids were not viewable by the entire world on the internet.
mikepurvis 7y ago
A 4" square blurry Polaroid picture that can be shown to a select few friends and eventually lost or destroyed has nothing to do with a high resolution image that is trivially forwarded to the entire school by the recipient, acquired via hacking or social engineering, and can be manipulated with photoshop.
- jseliger 7y ago
  This thing that the doer perceives as harmless could be harmful. How will you know it's harmful? Because we arrest you for doing it! That's how you know it's harmful, because of the consequences we impose.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  A polaroid, or the artful b&w 10x8 developed in photography class can just as easily be passed round half a school in one break or lunch time, or left on teacher's desk. Or sent in to a 1990s Reader's Wives magazine, then publication would have come down to whether they looked school age or not. That it can spread wider, go viral, or be manipulated is a case against any electronic communication in place of paper or film photography. The choice to send it further is the problem not the medium.
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    Right, but every student getting a glimpse of it as it goes by is completely different from everyone having the full-fidelity copy on their device permanently. And a magazine's editorial board being the gatekeeper on wide distribution is completely different from anyone who has it being able to pull the trigger at any time. If you really think these are in any way the same, you'll be shocked to hear what record companies thought about Napster in the early 2000s. Turns out sharing a digital file and sharing/copying a physical artifact are not even remotely the same. As tech people, we don't get to just wash our hands of these consequences and say that it's down to individual human choices any more than car companies can avoid building in safety features by saying they'd be unnecessary if only people were better drivers.

RHSeeger 7y ago

The people who wrote those laws need a stern talking to. They don't even seem to consider that some teenager could text them a photo of themselves, call the cops, and get them arrested for child pornography. Heck, they could send them a text talking about doing something with them and have the same happen in some states. The laws are exceedingly over-broad.

fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
The people who wrote those laws are in a care home or dead. The people who haven't bothered to update them need to be talked to.
- close04 7y ago
  I was always puzzled by how laws that treat cases where the same person is both victim and culprit for the very same thing work. Is a failed suicide treated as attempted murder?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  It's prosecutors who choose vases to prosecute. Usually prudish, slut-shaming, patriarchal, myaogynistic prosecutors.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    The problem is that there will _always_ be prosecutors that abuse their power. It's the nature of people. It just so happens that certain professions abusing their power are far more devastating to the people they impact (lawyers, police, etc). As such, we should be making laws that are harder for them to abuse. We have many "we'll give them more power, so they can use it where needed and just not abuse it" laws that constantly get abused.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lunias 7y ago

Perhaps our prioritization of the creation of tools which enable us to share all of our thoughts and experiences will force us to reflect on our taboos as they become increasingly public. I for one, hope that people begin to realize that these taboos are not that infrequent, nor are they particularly harmful.