Description: This is
a VOA Special English Technology Report.
See text below
Text:
Just how common is teen sexting? Last week we
reported on a new study of more than fifteen hundred
Internet users age ten to seventeen. It found that
only two and a half percent of them had sexted in
the past year. It also found that only one percent
of the images might violate child pornography laws.
That study came from the University of New
Hampshire. But another new report suggests much
higher rates. Both studies defined "sexting" only to
mean sending or receiving naked pictures.
Psychologist Jeff Temple is an assistant professor
at the University of Texas Medical Branch in
Galveston. He says, "We found actually about
twenty-eight percent of teens had sexted." Mr.
Temple says reports from medical offices and school
officials support that finding. "One of the authors
that will be on our paper with our data is a
pediatrician. And he certainly sees this in his
office. And from talking to school personnel and
teens themselves, it certainly seems like it's
happening quite a bit more frequently than the one
percent reported in the New Hampshire study." He
also says the behavior was the same for boys and
girls. "We found that about a third of girls had
sent a naked picture of themselves to another teen
and about a third of boys had sent a naked picture
of themselves to another teen." Sexting is not the
only issue involving teens and technology. A recent
"Online Family Report" from computer security
company Norton called attention to "cyberbaiting" in
classrooms. Marian Merritt is the company's Internet
safety advocate. She says: "Kids may engage in
purposely taunting or teasing or harassing the
teacher in order to get the teacher to have some
kind of reaction or response that they then hope to
capture on a cellphone camera, a video, and post
online where people can view it. Now this can be
incredibly embarrassing and humiliating and damaging
to the reputation of a teacher." Ms. Merritt says
Norton surveyed more than two thousand three hundred
teachers in twenty-four countries. "What we were
surprised to learn is that one in five teachers
globally knows somebody that it's happened to or has
had it happen to themselves." The online survey also
found that seventy percent of young people reported
having had a negative experience online. Forty
percent rated the experience as serious, including
cyberbullying, cybercrime or being contacted by
strangers. For VOA Special English, I'm Alex
Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
