By Erik Qualman

Haven’t heard of sexting?  Your kids certainly have.  Almost one-third of youths admit they have sent a photo or video of themselves in the nude or have received such items via e-mail, text, Facebook , etc.  Sex + Texting = Sexting.

Kim Zetter of Wired writes a great story detailing these recent findings.  Some of the more interesting items:

• Girls were more likely to share a naked image of themselves than boys
• Those who are already sexually active were much more likely to send an image than those who were not sexually active
• 29 percent said they shared naked images of themselves with someone they knew only online

The  survey was conducted by MTV and the Associated Press.  It involved 1,247 youths between ages 14 and 24.

The survey results and article express an important takeaway for me;  since these kids have grown up in the digital age there is the misconception that they understand how to best use the digital tools at their disposal.  This is not always the case.  Parents shouldn’t be intimidated by getting onto social media, it’s part of your job as a parent to be aware of your kids online activity and give them appropriate guidance where needed.

If your kids aren’t open to listening to you, perhaps a series of somewhat humorous commercials involving James Lipton in conjunction with LG may deliver the message about proper digital behavior.  I’ve posted the most popular of these above (over 65,000 views), but all four can be viewed at Give It A Ponder YouTube Channel.

Even funny commercials may not be getting the sexting message across as evidenced by these two photos (above)

Sadly however, even these commercials may not be sinking in, as evidenced by the screen shots of the photos for the two most recent comments on the Give It A Ponder YouTube Channel.