Sexting and digital flirting poses threat to teenage life: Experts

Many school boards across Canada have already taken up the initiative to educate students the vices of leading a digital life. Educators at Bluenose Academy in Lunenburg are making online safety a priority.

14-year-old Eva Purcell-MacIntyre, believes it’s a brilliant idea. She says she received a number of nude image requests from boys in her community and she has turned down everyone.

She explains, "You definitely have to think about the future, and you have to think about the situation. If you are under peer pressure, take yourself away from that peer pressure. Assess and make sure you know the full consequences of what can happen if you sext”.

The growing danger of sexting and digital flirting among young people comes in the wake of the recent happening in the community of Bridgewater. Six teenage boys appeared before court this Wednesday on account of child pornography charges as well as charges of sharing intimate images without consent.

The arrests happened after police found over 20 teenage girl pictures found shared in a Dropbox account without the girl’s knowledge.

The people around the South shore of the province were shocked after they came to know of the sexting case that happened in the town and the nearby communities.

14-year-old, Miranda Dagley says, "It made me feel terrible for the girls and it's a terrible thing to happen. It could happen to anyone in any situation."

Madison Greek another 14-year-old thinks many teenage girls feel the need to fit in which basically brings them into trouble later.

"I think that this happens quite a lot in relationships, when two people are talking and flirting with each other and maybe one person is pressuring someone into sending those pictures or texts," she said.

According to Canadian studies, kids as young as nine have sent some explicit images of themselves. And about half of the high school students say they have sent or received an intimate image some point.

Signy Arnason, associate executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection in Winnipeg, says, "I think this is all about adolescent behaviour in the brain.”

Arnason describes, "They live in the here and now. They're thinking about what they're doing in the moment and sharing that and no, I don't think enough of them are sitting back contemplating, 'If I share this, oh what if we break up? If I share this, I have lost complete control of what ends up happening with it.”

However Amason says, in the last five years, number of teens have been arrested for sharing images without consent. And their victims have been left devastated. Suicide cases of teens like Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd, who were assaulted and exploited online are examples of how the outcomes can be.

"We've had about a dozen kids call in and say, 'If this doesn't stop, I'm contemplating ending my life.' So we know it's a very serious issue," she explains.

Amason harps on the point that focus should be on more education and on the fact that all sexting crimes are about lack of consent.

"The problem was we armed these kids with incredibly powerful devices. It's almost a recipe for disaster. So we're trying to play catch-up in and around how do we begin to manage and teach kids, especially when they start to enter into intimate relationships,” says Amason.

(Reporting by Debarati Mukherjee)