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Surprise! Parents Play Key Role in Sexting Prevention

by Warren Riddle on December 17, 2009 at 01:30 PM

The locker room scene in 'Porky's' used to represent the Holy Grail of hormonal, pubescent male fantasies. But, the unadulterated peep show would probably elicit nothing more than a "whatevs" from today's free-wheeling, sext-crazy teens. As various studies steadily unveil their conclusions on the raunchy text messaging phenomenon, it's becoming clearer that the troubling trend is indeed as widespread and commonplace as many analysts feared.

One recent survey determined that more than 25-percent of teens admitted to participating in sexy text exchanges, and another study by the Pew Research Center has concluded that 15-percent of kids aged 12 to 17 have received sexually explicit texts. The Center's Internet and American Life Project also broke the numbers down a little to give some specific data.

While 4-percent of teens apparently send explicit texts, that percentage doubles for 17-year-olds. And 30-percent of those 17-year-olds also claimed to have received the naughty messages. The phenomenon is also much more prevalent among kids who handle their own cell bill, as 17-percent admitted to sending sexts compared to only 3-percent of those whose parents handle the bill. So, there's an obvious lesson here: Parents, foot the bill! [From: The Washington Post]

Tags: sexting, sexting teens, sextingteens, top

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