Texting or Sexting – Do you Know What Your Kids are Doing?
Intercept SMS Text Messages
As sending SMS text messages from cell phones has become an attraction in teen social life, parents, educators and advocates have grown increasingly concerned about the role of mobile phones in the sexual lives of youths. A recent survey from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project (pewinternet.org/topics/Teens.aspx) found that four percent of cell phone owning youths ages 12-17 indicate they have transmitted sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude images or videos of themselves to other people via text messaging. This activity is typically known as “sexting” in today’s vernacular. Additionally, 15% say they have received such images of someone they already know via text message.
According to research from market researchers The Nielsen Company (blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/under-aged-texting-usage-and-actual-cost/) American young people send an inconceivable average of 10 text messages every hour that they are not in school or sleeping – and most likely a lot during their classes too!
By researching over than forty thousand monthly US mobile cellular bills, Nielsen determined that American teens sent an average of an astounding 3,146 texts every month during the third quarter 2009.
SMS Text Monitoring
Their younger counterparts – tweenagers – from age 9 to 12 sent an average of 1,146 texts each month. That equates to four per hour they were in school or not sleeping. In comparison, the average number of monthly texts sent by all mobile users collectively was just slightly above five hundred. In the fourth quarter 2009, tweenage users ages 9-12 years old increased SMS usage by eight percent and almost doubled their text message volume.
Monitor SMS Text Messages
Focus group findings show that sexting happens most often during one of three different scenarios: The first, involves exchanges of images just between two romantic partners;
the next, lists exchanges between partners that are then shared with other people; followed by, exchanges between people who are not yet in a relationship, but with one person hoping there will be one.
Teens were interviewed and gave researchers a variety of reasons surrounding the impulse to get involved with sexting. These included the researcher’s interpretation that “…sexually suggestive images had become a form of relationship currency,”; that sexting images “… are shared as a part of or instead of sexual activity,” and that SMS text message sexting is a way of starting or maintaining a relationship. Sensitive images are also passed along to friends “… for their entertainment value, as a joke, or for fun.”
Teenagers also described to researchers the pressure they feel to share sexual pictures. Not surprisingly the report also reveals that teenagers who are more intense users of mobile phones are more likely to receive sexually suggestive images. For these teens, the phone has become such a common means for communication and a variety of content that doing without it is unlikely.
Perfect Storm Sexting meets Parental Control
The combination of risk-taking and sexual exploration during the teen years mixed with regular connection using cellular phones and other mobile devices “…creates a ‘perfect storm’ for sexting,” said Pew’s Amanda Lenhart. “Teenagers have always grappled with issues around sex and relationships, but their coming-of-age mistakes and transgressions have never been so easily transmitted and archived for others to see.”
The Youth SMS Market Will Continue to Grow
Despite the indications that per user usage has peaked (they can’t possibly use them more can they?!?) Nielsen estimates that overall SMS usage will increase as the avid user population ages and entices the older generations to text with them in order to stay in contact with them. Existing SMS users are expected to continue to use texting extensively and as tweenagers become teenagers they are in all probability going to follow the trends of texting established by current teenagers. The number of text messages sent per capita has grown every year and should continue.
Mobile SMS Tracking Software
If you’ve got kids then in all likelihood not surprised by the usage statistics. In all probability most parents don’t believe their children are involved with sexting, or they are looking for ways to find out. While parents may fume that all the texts their teens and tweens are sending will land them in the poorhouse, Nielsen research shows the average cost of a single text message is only about one penny. The real issue concerning parents is not so much how often teens use their phones but more about how they use their phones, and when they are using them.
Parental Control Software for Smart Phones
A practical technological solution available for parents and guardians to find out what their children are doing is spyphone software. An excellent source of information on spyphone software for Parental Control is SpyMobi Spy Phone.
SMS Monitoring Software
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In: Parental Control Software, SMS Intercept
