A cell phone can provide children with a measure of security by connecting them with their parents, but it can also expose them to the dangers of cyberbullying, harassment and child pornography, says Const. Amy Haggerty of the Ottawa police.
Because of a growing trend called sexting, children as young as 10 years old are increasingly sending explicit text messages and nude photos of themselves between camera phones and other mobile devices.
However, parents who purchase cell phones for their children in an effort to ensure their safety may be unaware of the dangers that cell phones can pose, says Matt Ertele, a student at Lisgar Collegiate Institute.
“Parents want to feel that their kids are safe so they start giving them cell phones around Grade 7,” he says.
But rather than using their phones to contact their parents, Ertele says most students use their phones to text their friends.
Increasingly, these text messages are becoming sexual in nature and Haggerty says that half of all teenagers have received sexually explicit texts.
Even though all Ottawa public schools have rules prohibiting the use of cell phones during class, this doesn’t stop students from using their mobile devices to spread rumours outside of school.
This can cause students who sext to become the targets of ridicule, harassment and non-stop cyberbullying from peers if their nude pictures and sexual messages circulate on the web and in schools, says Haggerty.
“Sometimes, when boyfriends and girlfriends break-up, their messages start to go viral around the school when one upset person starts spreading private text messages from their former partner to all of their friends,” says Lauren Mills, another student at Lisgar.
Mills estimates that up to 90 per cent of students have cell phones, meaning messages can reach a large audience very quickly.
“Thirty years ago, we wrote little notes to our friends and passed them around in class,” says Lisgar vice-principal Bruce Summers.
“Today, advances in technology and the availability of cell phones allow messages to be shared constantly and somewhat uncontrollably with a larger and sometimes unintended audience.”
Haggerty describes this as a “spider web effect,” where a message or photo sent to five friends may get forwarded to five others and so on, in some cases reaching hundreds or thousands of recipients.
What may start out as playful behaviour between romantic couples can quickly turn into both a criminal and social nightmare for the 20 per cent of teenagers who have sent nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves, says Haggerty.
“If there is a picture of a nude person under the age of 18, it can be considered child pornography,” she says.
Laurel Gordon, who also attends Lisgar, says that part of the problem may be caused by students who get cell phones when they are too young and don’t fully understand the dangers of technology.
“There are definitely girls in Grade 5 who have iPhones and Blackberries and more technology than they know what to do with,” she says.
To combat the growing trend of sexting, school resource officers from the Ottawa police will be attending high schools throughout the spring to educate students about the safe use of technology.