Teen craze
More than a third
of kids in UK secondary schools have been sent messages containing sexual
content, a survey has found.
Researchers found youngsters are being sent sex
texts or "Sexts" - often by their school friends. The messages contain
images of sex acts involving young people and of youngsters exposing
themselves. Material is sent to mobile phones via texts, transferred using
Bluetooth or uploaded to social networking groups.
The survey was conducted
by the children's charity Beatbullying. It found it was most often not
strangers sending the images. Seven out of 10 of the 11-18-year-olds
surveyed said they knew the sender personally. Only a quarter of the messages
were sent by the youngster's current boyfriend or girlfriend. The charity
insists that girls are bullied into taking, and sharing, explicit pictures
of themselves. Because girls don't do that sort of thing.
Chief executive
Emma-Jane Cross said politicians must pool together organisations like
Beatbullying to create an intervention and prevention task force in schools
and the local community. After all, telling teenage kids what to do is an
extremely effective method of controlling them.
“This needs to be part of
the solution if we are to educate our young people about the consequences of
their actions and how to keep safe online as well as offline," she said.