U.S. teens ages 13-17 text-messaged an average of 1,742 times a month. (iStockphoto)

Warning — No Such Thing as Safe Sexting

By |

EL PASO, Texas — A young high school girl in Cincinnati committed suicide because her boyfriend leaked photos of her naked to the whole community. The leaked photo caused so much humiliation, ridicule and abuse that it drove the young teen into hanging herself. This story made national headlines a few years back because the sexting phenomena and its effects were just starting to become a fad. The personal words and intimate photos that used to be part of love letters and kept private in an intimate relationship are now becoming public on mobile phones.  The new it thing is called “sexting.”

UTEP’s Women’s Resource Center along with the Sexual Trauma & Assault Response Services (STARS), told students that “sexting” has both legal and personal consequences. The spokesperson for STARS, Katherine Jones said, “Many people sext today with another person without thinking of the damage that sending sexual content (i.e. pictures and messages) via text or e-mail can have on their reputation, careers and their future if that content happens to slip into the wrong hands.”

There is currently no legal definition of sexting, but according to the Teen Health section of About.com, “Sexting is the use of a cell phone or other similar electronic devices to distribute sexually explicit pictures or video.

What’s a Prof to Do When Students Text and Surf in Class?

By |

EL PASO — I do not want to be a technology police officer in the classroom yet I sometimes feel like one. I am troubled by the number of students using cell phones to text and laptops to surf the web during my lectures. This seems to be even more of an issue in larger and bigger classrooms. As UTEP’s student population grows (over 20,000 at the start of this academic year), each semester there seem to be more students enrolling in my lecture classes, and more instances of technology disrupting my classroom teaching. Early in the semester, actually on day one and week one of each class, students and I go over the course syllabi and we review the goals and objectives for each class. This is the time where I usually explain expectations in my courses, including the use of technology.