Sexting: Diffusion Of Responsibility

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Sexting has become more of a problem these days than it has been in the past. Sexting is when someone sends a sexual explicit photo of themselves via cell phone, snapchat, email, or facebook. Teens are getting cell phones at a much earlier age which is one of the main causes of why sexting is becoming such a big deal.Some of them are even getting smartphones when their parents should just get them a basic phone. Having these smart phones gives teenagers more freedom which is something most teens do not need. Hence that parents don’t understand the consequences and open access that children have to information that they can retrieve via smartphone.When it comes to sexting most teenagers do it because of the attention that it creates for them, …show more content…

Diffusion of responsibility is when someone won’t take responsibility for something if there are a lot of other people around. Diffusion of responsibility means “a reduction of a sense of urgency to help someone involved in an emergency or dangerous situation under the assumption that others who are also observing the situation will help” (Gilovich 538). The way that this can be related to sexting is that teenagers can get themselves involved in some dangerous situations if they are not careful, such as they could get involved with someone that they don’t know. Sexting can be harmful and risky because there are many dangers to it because not everyone knows what they are getting themselves into. It can be harmful because teenagers send naked pictures of each other on snapchat and they will do it to get revenge on their ex’s. If they post a picture on snapchat or instagram it could be used as blackmail and that could cause trouble for them in the future if they wanted to get find a job it would be harder for them for get one. Diffusion of responsibility used with sexting can also result in cyberbulling, school violence, and online predators. It can result to cyberbulling, school violence, and online violence because their pictures could end up on the internet and in the hands of the wrong person. It can also be a problem because if a girl or guy just breaks up with each other they will feel hurt and they …show more content…

Social facilitation is when someone will affect someone else positive or negative and in the presence of others. In terms of what my social psychology textbook says that social facilitation it means “ initially a term for enhanced performance in the presence of others; now a broader term for the effect- positive or negative- of the presence of others on performance” (Gilovich). The way that sexting would relate to social facilitation is that sexting is in a way a form of expressing confidence in personal sexuality in the presence of another person. It can be related because social facilitation is when someone performs well at something they are already good at while being watched. A photograph is a very public medium because it can be shared and sent anywhere and the receiver wants to think that there could be a type of pride in being so bold which could make the sender braver and more confident in posing for photos that are being used for sexting. Smartphones and most phones in general has made people more bold because it eliminates shame when the reaction of the recipient is only through whatever words they decide to text back makes people say and do things that they would never say in person because they feel more confident and positive with what they can say when they sext. I read an article in The Atlantic called Why Kids sext which is a great example of this because there was a sexting ring going on

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