ECASEY is the Education & Awareness Committee of the Lane County CSEC MDT. This committee is focused on reducing child sex trafficking by partnering with local school districts to provide community outreach and promote public awareness of technology-facilitated exploitation of children.
While most teens participate in texting via phone, 4 in 10 teens are also using messaging apps. One third of American teens use Skype or FaceTime, a quarter use Facebook Messenger, and another quarter use Kik. About a fifth use WhatsApp and fewer teens use GroupMe, Line, or Viber. Teens often have multiple tools at their disposal, with the average teen using two of the platforms listed above.
24% of high-school age teens (ages 14 to 17) and 33% of college-age students (ages 18 to 24) have been involved in a form of nude sexting. 17% of sexters share the messages they receive with others, and 55% of those share them with more than one person.
Only 5% of online predators pretend they're kids. Most reveal that they're older – which can be appealing to the 12-to-15-year-olds who are most often targeted. The majority of teenagers don't consider meeting strangers online a taboo, with 6 in 10 saying they have met at least one new friend on the Web. And of those who meet people online, one-third also followed up with an in-person meeting.
Close to 43% of teens have been the victims of cyber bullying, yet only 1 in 10 of these teens will tell an adult about their victimization. Girls are about twice as likely as boys to be victims and perpetrators of cyber bullying.