Sexting Law: Necessary and Effective?

I was searching for a classmate's blog to comment on and, when I came across “Teen's: Think before youpush the send button on that message!!!”, it immediately caught my interest. Obviously I have known of the issues surrounding “sexting”; it seems to always be a big problem that can have negative long term effects on teens. I hear stories in the news and on The Bobby Bones Show all the time that give examples of the consequences of the act of sexting. I believe every teenager in the past decade, and maybe even longer, has had this come up at some point.
My classmate focuses on the bill that has been passed, that give a much harder consequence for teenagers that get caught sexting. They will be charged with a misdemeanor and take a mandatory class that will educate them further on how it can hurt them in the future. In this blog the writer completely agrees with the bill that was passed and thinks that it will help the problem of teens sending these kind of texts. With the law being passed, teens will know about this law, and it will make them think twice about sexting, and help them realize how stupid it really is.

I also agree that if it works then that will be great; I just don't know if it will actually make a difference. Knowing how teenagers can be, because I was one and obviously was around a lot of them, I realize they can be extremely stubborn and not make the smartest decisions for very immature reasons. I think they are smart enough to realize the repercussions of it, but just don’t care at that moment and time. It is just the same as with drinking and drugs. There are even stronger laws against it and many get caught and in trouble with the law, but the majority seem to do it anyways.

Another thought I have about this is: how will it be enforced successfully? A big part of that would probably depend on the help of parents, but I'm not sure that will be very effective. Parents might not want to go to the extent of getting their children in trouble with the law. Also, things on your phone can be very secretive. There are passwords, and texts can be deleted whenever the users want them to be. A good point in my classmate's blog is the question whether being caught sexting is serious enough to get put on a teenager's permanent record. I guess it depends on how you look at it. You can think that it is just another consequence that might stop someone from pushing that send button, or that it is a bit too severe.

As I said before, if it can make some difference for some teens, then it must be worth something. Hopefully, for most teenagers it won't get to this point because parents will address this problem head on, and teach their kids to make the right decision and not get involved in this trend.