Tiffaney Gipson's List: Refuting Technology Debate

• • Talk through the consequences of ‘sexting’, both posing for images and storing or sending them.
   
  • Ensure your child understands that once an image is sent, it can't be retrieved. Not only will it be available for others to see now, but also in years to come.
   
  • Encourage open discussion with your child about who they're talking to online and what sites they visit.
   
  • Make an effort to become familiar with and understand the new technology your child is using.
   
  • Encourage your child to talk to an adult about any problems or concerns they may have. Reassure them that this won't necessarily mean they'll be made to stop using the technology involved.
   
   

  What should you look out for?

   
   
  • Sudden reluctance to socialise with friends
   
  • Disinterest or avoidance of school
   
  • Dropping out of sports or other recreational activities
   
  • Extreme sleeping behaviour (either more or less)
   
  • Abnormal nail biting or hair pulling
   
  • Abnormal changes in mood and/or behaviour
   
   

  What to do next:

   
   
  • Move your family computer to a public place so you can monitor the times they're online, and their anxiety levels
   
  • Contact the police if the messages are threatening

• Using social media Web sites is among the most common activity of today's children and adolescents. Any Web site that allows  social interaction is considered a social media site, including social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter;  gaming sites and virtual worlds such as Club Penguin, Second Life, and the Sims; video sites such as YouTube; and blogs. Such  sites offer today's youth a portal for entertainment and communication and have grown exponentially in recent years. For this  reason, it is important that parents become aware of the nature of social media sites, given that not all of them are healthy  environments for children and adolescents. Pediatricians are in a unique position to help families understand these sites  and to encourage healthy use and urge parents to monitor for potential problems with cyberbullying, “Facebook depression,”  sexting, and exposure to inappropriate content.

• In many countries, including Canada, "sexting" — the texting or posting of naked or semi-naked photographs on social media sites — can be considered a crime if the persons portrayed are minors.

• In the Rehtaeh Parsons case, one teenager was charged with two counts of distributing child pornography, and the other was charged with making and distributing child pornography.

   

  Both men are now 18 but were minors when the alleged offences occurred. Her family says that Parsons committed suicide earlier this year because of the bullying and cyberbullying she had to endure after a photo of the alleged sexual assault was seen by classmates and others.

• One girl, Morgan Pozgar, entered a text messaging competition and said that she trained by sending on average 8,000 text messages a month to her friends – an astonishing rate of one every five and a half minutes. ⁶ You see, to text, people tend to hold cell phones in their fingers and press the tiny keys with their thumbs. This reverses the computer keyboard position, where clumsy thumbs are relegated to the space bar and let fingers do the typing. This can lead to Repetitive Stress Syndrom (RSI), the symptoms of which include pain and immobility in the joints, nerves and muscles from the fingers to the neck. RSI is caused by repetitive movements and fatigue resulting from natural stresses and strains on the body.
• Although controversial, yet another possible risk of text messaging is how it may contribute to increasingly poor spelling and writing skills in youth. Because texting uses intentionally misspelled words, nonstandard abbreviations, letter substitutions, and little or no punctuation, some educators believe that it encourages poor literacy and a blunt, choppy style at odds with academic rigor.
• Time Away from Homework. Technology affords teens (and adults) a host of ways to do something other than what they are supposed to such as homework. In the adult world, it is a common experience that the lines between work and leisure have been blurred. Adults often work at home and play at work – e-mailing and text messaging friends and family, passing along jokes and family photos, shopping, viewing pornography, reading the news, and even gambling. Business owners are increasingly relying on stealth spying programs to snoop on their employees to make sure that their activities are both appropriate and work related. Their bottom lines are at stake. As parents, we too have the responsibility to help our children focus on their productivity. Their “bottom lines” are academic achievement and success.

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• Juvenile sexting is increasing in frequency.¹ A recent study found that 20 percent of teenagers (22 percent of girls and 18 percent of boys) sent naked or seminude images of themselves or posted them online.² Another survey indicated that nearly one in six teens between the ages of 12 and 17 who own cell phones have received naked or nearly nude pictures via text message from someone they know.³

   

  Many disturbing examples of such behavior exist. For instance, two 15-year-olds, a male and a female, were sentenced in juvenile court for possessing and sending nude photos on their cell phones; the girl sent a picture of herself to the boy, and another image allegedly was taken on his camera.⁴ A 15-year-old boy received 12 months of probation for forwarding a picture of his private parts to a 13-year-old girl’s cell phone.⁵ An 18-year-old high school graduate committed suicide after a nude photo she had transmitted via her cell phone to her boyfriend also was sent to hundreds of teenagers in her school. Other students, who apparently continued to forward the image, allegedly harassed the girl.⁶

• Now imagine that those same easily distracted teens check their text messages while driving, and they receive a sext – a sexually explicit message or picture. The distraction level has just gone sky high. Police in the U.S. are already reporting pulling over drivers who appeared distracted, only to find that they were sexting, and many of them were also under the influence of alcohol. These poor decisions add up to dangers on the road for everyone.

• Citizens and lawmakers nationwide are increasingly aware that using a cell phone while driving is the safety equivalent of taking the wheel after a few drinks
• In 2011, the most recent year in which data is available, 3,331 people were killed in automobile accidents involving a distracted driver, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association -- more than the 3,267 such deaths reported the year before. About half of 2011's fatal crashes from a distracted driver didn't specify the source of distraction, but when distractions were identified, cell phones were often a leading cause, contributing to 350 fatalities, or 12 percent of all fatal crashes from driver distraction. And most experts say these statistics are vastly underreported, meaning that thousands more lives a year are almost certainly being claimed by an epidemic whose causes are already well understood

• what made the Steubenville, Ohio, rape case — which ended today with guilty verdicts against Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond — different and what made it feel cutting edge is the pervasive role the Internet played
• There was, to begin with, the Instagram photo of the two Steubenville High School football players holding their 16-year-old victim over a basement floor, one by her arms, one by her legs. The image, which was endlessly reblogged, has a chilling quality because we know what happened next. The young men penetrated the inebriated young woman with their fingers, which in Ohio constitutes rape. (Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were tried as juveniles; they could face detention until they turn 21.)

• There was the now infamous 12-minute video from the night of the assault.  In it, a former classmate of the young men can be seen mocking the victim, laughingly referring to her as “dead” and repeatedly joking about sexual assault. And there was nearly one more video: a classmate of the attackers testified that he took a video of part of the actual assault with his cell phone but later deleted it.

   

  And then there were all of the text messages. There were messages recounting the events of the night. One the attacker allegedly wrote: “I’m pissed all I got was a hand job, though. I should have raped since everyone thinks I did.” And messages to the victim, including one in which one of the attackers tried to persuade her that “nothing happened.”
• At the trial, social media were front and center. The prosecution introduced many text messages, including one in which the victim wrote, “I wasn’t being a slut. They were taking advantage of me.
• Worse still for victims, the Internet never forgets. Memories fade and newspaper articles get thrown out. But images like the Instagram photograph and the 12-minute video live forever online. Years from now, anyone who is curious about the Steubenville rape will be able to bring the worst aspects of the story to life with a few mouse clicks.

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