SYRACUSE -- Clifford Gedson remembers the days when you would send love letters to get someone's attention. “I would say hi, how are you doing?” the 72-year-old Gedson said. But those days are long gone. Now, the growing craze among teenagers is "sexting," or sending sexually explicit pictures and messages via cell phones.
A 10th grader at Cicero-North Syracuse High School faces charges of Disseminating Indecent Material to a Minor and Endangering the Welfare of a Child for sending an explicit video to a 7th grader's cell phone. In Rochester, a 16-year-old boy faces up to seven years in prison for forwarding a nude photo of his 15-year-old girlfriend to his friends. Onondaga County Assistant District Attorney, Rick Trunfio, says he's disturbed by the growing number of cases he's seeing. "In New York, you can be 16 and charged with a crime in adult court, but you have kids who are unknowingly committing felonies where they can go to state prison or do federal time depending on what happened," said Trunfio.
A national study revealed that 22% of teen girls say they have electronically sent or posted nude images of themselves online. 40% of teenage girls said they sent suggestive messages or images as "a joke," but when it gets in the wrong hands, no one is laughing. "We even have situations where an image has gone from a phone to a computer and a CD was made, and CDs were sold," Trunfio said.
The District Attorney's office has reached out to almost 6,000 kids with its electronic safety program known as RISK, or Real Life Internet Safety for Kids. Trunfio says parents and teachers need to step forward and teach kids about the dangers and consequences of "sexting" so they don't have to learn the hard way.
There are companies out there like WebSafety that have developed software that allows parents to keep an eye on how their kids are using their cell phones. They can block explicit texting terms or be informed if their child uses them or looks at any pornographic images on their phones' internet browsers.
