Talk
As I was visiting one of my business clients in Malta Idaho the other day, I was asked to step into an office and talk for a minute. I found out that the gentleman in the office was the Bishop of his LDS ward. We chatted for a few minutes and then he asked if I would be willing to come to his Ward and give a talk about cell phones, computers and the internet. I have given a similar talk many times to many different groups. Each times I have talked about computers, internet, pornography etc. However, I haven’t had to talk about cell phones before. Apparently, there is a huge problem with people taking pictures and sending them in text form to other people. (commonly known as texting) Young people especially don’t seem to understand the implications of taking a picture of themselves and sending it to a friend. It is called sexting. I don’t have texting on my phone, (we have it blocked on our phones) so I don’t have a ton of experience with the issue so I’m going to have to do a little bit of research. I did post an article a while ago about a friend of mine that does a lot of texting. Here is that post.
texting
I have a month to prepare so wish me luck.
In my short research I found an article on the web that talked about a young man that had received a picture from his girl friend. This is what the article said,
“The Sentinel tells the story of Phillip Alpert. After his former girlfriend taunted him, Alpert remembered the nude photos she e-mailed to him while they were dating. He took revenge by e-mailing the photos of the 16-year-old girl to more than 70 people, including her parents, grandparents and teachers. Three days later, Alpert, then 18, was charged with transmitting child pornography. Today, Alpert is serving five years of probation for the crime, and he is registered as a sex offender — a label he must carry at least until he is 43.”
This is a very dangerous practice that can mark you for life. I think my message will be, “DO NOT FORWARD SEXTING MESSAGES AND BLOCK THOSE THAT SEND THEM TO YOU!”
Yikes, I’m sure he didn’t even think down that road of pornography. To most people that is looking a pictures of people you don’t know. When it’s people you know…….it’s not porn, just a picture. Poor guy. That is a great lesson.
I’ve tried to keep up on what comes and goes on Tom’s phone. He knows I check it regularly. But I am dealing with fire…….I know, because I can’t be there ALL THE TIME monitoring.
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Cheers! Sandra. R.