As a psychiatrist over the last few years I have seen an increased risk in cases of individuals suffering from addiction of sexting and many suffering from effects of sexting.

what is "sexting"?
This is a new rage where teens/adults are sharing sexually loaded messages and/or nude pictures of themselves or others via text or on-line.

This is a very dangerous psychological disorder growing extremely fast among teens and young adults.

While most people involved know this is a wrong behavior, still they dont stop. So Why are teen's/adults involved in sexting?
1. most teenagers reported - Peer pressure and the need to feel "cool" as the reason for this behavior.

2. In adults its because of perversion, sexual adventurism.

3. Emotional fools!! - recently parents of a girl approached me. She was in severe nervous breakdown. Crying whole day, fainting, not eating.
A few months ago her boyfriend had asked for a proof of love. Using all emotional language, she managed to convience her to send a nude photo of hers. After their breakup, Today that photo was leaked to all close friends.

Being in love is not being stupid. Taking care of self is first, but teens, young adults dont understand it.


Purpose or Aim of Sexting?
Its New way to Sexually connect. Sexting is a new psychological behavior whose subconscious aim is sexual intercourse.
While sexual arousal is achieved through sending sexually loaded texts and images, the ultimate goal is to have fun among the sheets


Legal?
As per indian penal law, Sexting is illegal. And can land a person into jail.

How common it is?
30-40% of Teens,
30% of young adults have addimitted to be participating in the same.

this is just a tip of the ice-berg data.


Why is it a dangerous psychological behavior?
1. it is very highly addictive. Hence making the sender and receiver both prone to it.
2. it very socially and personally damaging.
3. it can introduce dangerous sexual behavior.
4. sexual experimentation at younger ages is possible.


Important advice For Parents

1. Talk to teens about inappropriate and appropriate use of modern technology. One way is to outline your expectations by creating a computer/cell phone contract with your teen.

2. Know who your teen is hanging out with both online and offline.

3.  Make sure your teens on-line profiles don't have private or personal identifying information (e.g., phone numbers, addresses, etc.)

4. Randomly, have your teen share with you any photos in their phone and computer gallery.  Also, make them make you a friend on Face Book or share their username and password with you to any of their social networking sites.  This way you can periodically check to make sure everything their posting is acceptable.

5. Talk and  Teach your teen to not respond impulsively to anything on-line or via text.  Filtering can help a trigger happy teen from making a permanent, potentially life altering mistake.  Encourage your teen to evaluate the consequences of posting their thoughts or pictures before hitting the send button.

6.   Make sure your teen understands that once pictures are out there, there's no way of getting them back, even if they're deleted from their phone or computer.  This is a scary reality about operating on-line.  Let your teens know that www not only stands for "World Wide Web" it also stands for "Whole World's Watching."

7.  Most importantly, encourage an open dialogue between you and your teen.  Set aside some time each day to just listen and talk with your teen about what's going on in their life.