Survey: One Third of Youths Have Engaged in Sexting

If you think the sexting phenomenon is growing, you’re not imagining it. According to a new survey, almost one-third of youths admit they’ve engaged in sexting-related activities that involved either e-mailing a photo or video of themselves in the nude or being the recipient of such images.

Through a survey conducted by MTV and the Associated Press, they found out that of those who admitted to distributing suggestive images of themselves, about 61 percent report that they were pressured by someone to send the image. Girls were more likely to share a naked image of themselves than boys. and those who are already sexually active were much more likely to send an image than those who were not sexually active. Most of the respondents sent the image to a significant other or a person of romantic interest to them. But 29 percent said they shared naked images of themselves with someone they knew only online.

MTV is also launching a contest called " Redraw the line challenge" to address digital abuse and also to help educate people especially youths.

Through this survey, it shows that new media have also a negative side to it such as sending 'private pictures' to other people. I think that such a contest would be useful in educating the people on digital abuse.

Gaming fun at the library

The Jurong regional library has introduced games on Xbox and Wii to encourage people especially youths to come to the library to check out what it has to offer, have fun and learning through the games. All the gaming sessions will be held on the soundproofed top level of the library, so that library users will not be disturbed. The Online Gaming Association believes that these sessions can be used to promote cyberwellness among youths as well.

The games are currently only available at Jurong regional library but the project could be extended to other library as well but the NLB said its plans have not been finalised.

I felt that this project will certainly encourage more youths to go to the library more often by using games that youths are interested in. By mingling with them while playing the games, the Online Gaming Association would then be able to know how many hours per day does youths spend on games and whether it will affect their studies.

For more information u can visit this site http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC091128-0000067/Gaming-fun-at-the-library

Youths 'bored in school holidays'

Recently I have came across an article on BBC news which is quite some time ago and the article is about youths in UK are wandering the streets because they have nowhere else to go. The 4Children charity has conducted a survey on 16,000 youths and 80% of them said that they had nothing to do outside of school. And 70% said youths became involved in anti-social behaviour and also crimes because they were bored.

The charity is calling for a national programme of UK youth centres, to provide dedicated space for teenagers. These centres would give young people the opportunity to socialise and give them access to music, the creative arts, sports facilities, extra classes and specialist support. An investigation has been carried out and they have found out that 60% of young people in deprived areas had been victims of crime in their community.

In my opinion, I felt that youth centres can really help youths that are bored and it can also reduce the percentage of crimes happening as youths can hang around at the youth centres instead of wandering the streets which might lead them into creating a crime. Parents also play an important role in ensuring that their children is free from crimes and that they are not bored at home by making sure that they are spending enough time with their child instead of working for long hours and neglecting them.

For more information about the article you can visit the following website http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6288962.stm