Teen “Sext” Rise

A new study suggests that 15 per cent of teenagers have received explicitly sexually text messages, dubbed “sext messages”. “Remember when we were all crying about the fact that AT&T delayed the rollout of multimedia messaging on the iPhone? Well, some parents may now be wishing the feature wasn’t available at all. Sending explicit content, such as naked or near-naked photos, via text message is a familiar phenomenon among some teens, according to survey results released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. The survey, conducted from June 26 to September 24 with the participation of 800 teenagers, is part of the research center’s Internet and American Life Project, which tracks the effect of the Internet on American life. It found that 4 percent of cell-owning teens ages 12 to 17 say they’ve sent sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images of themselves to someone else via text. Fifteen percent say they have received such material.”