The first time I heard the word sexting was when I was about 10 years old. I thought it was a bad thing to do, but as I got older, the topic seemed to fade away. As the topic faded away, so did my opinion about it.
Teenagers often send naked photos of themselves to their crushes or significant others, but because of the immaturity level of high schoolers, these pictures often end up in the wrong hands and rumors are spread.
In my high school, people used words like “hoe” and “thot” to describe people whose images were shown around the school. Sexting, no matter what age, can end up ruining a person’s reputation and character.
We see this a lot on social media when celebrity nudes get exposed. Sexting may not be a big deal when it comes to more mature, personal relationships, but teenagers should try to stay away from this because you often cannot trust the people you know.
High school is mostly filled with rumors, so many people often do not see the actual evidence. There have been incidents where people have told me not to hang out or talk to people based on what they heard about the person. I knew that ignoring the person was not the best way to handle the situation. People will always talk about people they know nothing about, so the rumors did not faze me.
Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center at Bridgewater State University did a study on the risks associated with young people and sexting. Their study showed that children started sexting from age 12. This study was taken in 2012 and showed that girls were more often pressured to sext than boys were. The statistics showed that 74 percent of boys did not sext while 67 percent of girls did not sext.
As a whole, sexting is an action that should be taken with precaution and people, including teenagers, should be aware of the consequences.
