If you are a State College High School student or a Penn State University student, you may want to think twice before texting nude pictures. One study has found that nearly 30% of American teens send a nude photo of themselves to another teen.
In one Colorado town, there is an investigation underway that perhaps hundreds of high school students were involved in sexting.
Many states have laws that criminally prosecute teenagers for sexting and it can require them to register as sex offenders. In one North Carolina town, two dating 16-year-olds were charged as adults under child pornography laws after exchanging nude photographs. A study co-written by David DiMatteo, an associate professor of law and psychology at Drexel University in Philadelphia, found that 28% of students had shared nude photos as minors. The study also found that the majority of these students didn’t know sexting could be considered a crime.
