Do you know what your kids are doing on the Internet?

Are your kids uploading pictures to social networking sites, or uploading videos to sites like You Tube?

No big deal?

Don’t ask, don’t tell?

 The London Times reports an alarming trend with teenagers and tweens emailing and texting suggestive messages and pictures. What started out as innocent text messages and a way to communicate with pals, teenagers in the United States are now finding out that there are severe consequences to sending ‘innocent messages’. There have also been reports of college bound teens losing college scholarships and jobs as a result of being identified in sexually-suggestive pictures on the Internet. Teenagers have also been arrested on child pornography charges.

Wait, read that last sentence again?

Teenagers have also been arrested on child pornography charges.

What few teenagers and parents realize is that simply receiving such explicit messages on one’s cell phone can be grounds for child pornography charges, according to a newspaper article that appeared in the London Times. The article goes to discuss a series of cases in the United States where teenagers are facing arrest and prosecution for sending and receiving the obscene messages. While some of this activity might just be kids dealing with raging hormones and trying to understand the prevalence of sexuality in our culture, The Law is looking at it a bit differently. American authorities have been seeking to charge and prosecute teenagers involved in “sexting.”

How prevalent is it? Research conducted by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy last month revealed that 20 per cent of teens in the States say they have sent or posted lewd photos or video of themselves.

Here, read more for yourselves?

London Times Article:

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5516511.ece

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy Research:

http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/