It may seem common-sensical to you that sending a digital naked picture of yourself to a friend might not actually be such a good idea, or that texting a constant stream of obnoxious, hateful messages could tick somebody off. But I guess some teens need a little help understanding that.
According to a study recently released by MTV and the Associated Press, 50% of all 14- to 24-year-olds have been the target of some kind of online or digital abuse and, get this, 30% have sent or received racy photos of themselves or others on their cell phones or online. That’s three out of every 10 youths in America, if you can believe it. Homer Simpson is dusting off his Mensa award acceptance speech right now.
We recently posted a Culture Clip about a Massachusetts 8th-grader who could be facing child pornography charges because he was selling naked pictures of his girlfriend via his cell phone. What? Just makes you want to rend your clothes and scream out “Release the Kraken!” doesn’t it?
But wait, MTV is offering a possible solution. They’ve launched an online application dubbed a “morality meter” that plugs into Facebook and is designed to help kids understand the difference between “digital use and digital abuse.” ABC News reports that, “The new tool lets teens share and rate stories about sexting, constant messages, spying, cyberbullying, digital-dating abuse and other forms of abuse. The idea is that, along the way, the teens will figure out which behaviors really are ‘over the line.'”
I know I’m hopelessly old school, but before laptops and cell phones were physically grafted into every teenager’s hand and they received all their wisdom from the Internet on high, wasn’t there some ancient mechanism already in place that was supposed to help them out with those kinds of moral quandaries? You know, a system that aided those developing minds in figuring out how to choose between right and really, really dumb?
What was that called again?
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