That’s not cool! Don’t let your finger do all the talking.

 

This week, our awesome group E mates and I gave a presentation concerning sexting and textual harassment. It is really a meaningful project. We live in a information society. Nowadays, who doesn’t have a cell phone? I have my cellphone since I got accepted into college. My parents gave it to me as a college gift. If I don’t have this project, I never would know such a wonderful communication tool also could cause the dangers of texting, it may even take people’s life.

Here are some interesting numbers we did research on cell phone. According to a recent Marist Poll conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, 87% US Americans said that they own a cell phone. 94% of Americans under age 45 have cell phone. (Watershed Publishing, 2009) Cell phone is so widely known and used. When we walk into campus, we will see most of our students own cell phones. It becomes so common that sometimes we ignore the problems cell phone may cause. 

What are the problems that cell phone usage may cause? The answer is sexting and textual harassment. Textual Harassment is phone calls and messages that are used as a form of bullying. And sexting is the act of text messaging someone in the hopes of having a sexual encounter with them later, initially casual, and transitioning into highly suggestive and even sexually explicit content. (The Line, 2011) Here are some statistics among teenage students. 33% of teen boys and 25% of teen girls say they have had nude images that originally meant to be private but shared with them. 3 in 10 young people have been involved in sexting. More than 50% of those who shared a sext shared with multiple people. Sexters are 4 times more likely to consider suicide in the past years than those who don’t.

That’s not cool! Most teenagers are still immature. They didn’t realize the risks from sexting. Once you decide to click the send button, it’s gone forever. You have no control over who can see it and you can’t take it back. Sexting and textual harassment can be a form of bullying. It can impact on the victim having low self-esteem, truancy, eating disorder and ever suicide. As a teacher, we should be aware of the danger of sexting and textual harassment. Teach students to respect each other and give them a lesson on the danger of it. It is necessary to make sure that students think before the finger does the talking.

During the preparation of our presentation, we also had some trouble. In that week, I happened to be off-island. It became really hard for me to communicate with my group mates and keep track on the progress of our presentation. When I came back from California, I immediately contacted with my group mates. Frankie told me that we did go through a hard time to create our presentation. Fortunately, we pulled through and had a wonderful presentation. Group E members, job well done!

Here is the link to our presentation:

http://www.wix.com/fgmcjohn/sextingtextualharassment

Reference: 

Watershed Publishing. (2009). Employment & Age Top Factors in Cell-Phone, PDA Use. Retrieved Monday, November 7, 2011, from http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/employment-age-top-factors-in-cell-phone-pda-use-9678/

The Line – Australian Government. (2011). Fact sheet: TXTing/SEXTing. Retrieved Monday, November 7, 2011, from

http://www.theline.gov.au/factsheets/text_sext