Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine

 

You have reached a life which has been disconnected

by Linda Sharp

Teenagers and cell phones - they go together these days like peanut butter and jelly. So constant is their presence, the phones seem all but a natural extension of their hands. They text like court reporters on speed, can snap photos faster than you can say "Cheese," and view the devices as necessary, placing them in the same category as food, air, and a really cool MySpace page.

All three of my daughters have cell phones. All three cell phones have unlimited texting (it took a single month of not having that feature to realize I was incredibly stupid to not have that feature - they seldom use the phone to actually talk. Their rollover minutes have avalanched at this point.)

My daughters have phones because they are often out of my sight. They are all very active, involved in extracurriculars which take them on field trips, keep them after school most nights, and weekends find them spread across Austin on multiple soccer fields as they both compete and work as soccer refs. 

They may text to their hearts content (although phones are turned over to me after school until homework is complete). They can use them to phone their friends (Again, a rarity. Teens do NOT talk.) What they are not allowed to do on those phones, however, is access the Web. 

That means any photos they snap go no further than their phones. No, I am not worried about them taking untoward photos of themselves, but I am a realist and understand that any photo taken these days and then sent via cyberspace becomes fair game for all.

Unfortunately, the majority of parents do not place such restrictions on their kids' phone use. And the news is constantly filled with stories stemming from the devices being used as miniature Playboy portfolios - the most famous being the Vanessa Hudgens (of High School Musical fame) nude pix fallout last year.

But while Vanessa was able to ride the wave of bad publicity and public consumption of her bad choices until it died out, teens in the real world have a much harder go of it when something they share with a beau goes viral. 

For Vanessa, fame was a great insulator. Yes, the pictures are still out there on various Web sites, but the attention span of the unwashed masses is short, and someone newd quickly came along to take the spotlight off her (Cheetah Girl, Adrienne Bailon - yes, it would appear that Disney has a Girls Gone Wild franchise).

But in the real world, where teens - the demographic which thinks no further ahead than the minute in which they are actually breathing - are not insulated by fame, money, and a rapidly moving news cycle, the results of their bad decisions are sometimes tragic.

Jessie Logan's parents found that out.

Jessie was an 18-year-old high school senior in 2008 when she decided to snap a cell phone shot of herself - naked - and send it to a boyfriend.

That picture was subsequently shared with hundreds of fellow students at her high school and others schools in her area.

The fallout was immediate - snickers and rude comments in the halls escalated to name calling, even things being thrown at her. It seemed she could go nowhere without being recognized as the girl in "that picture."

As her mom, Cynthia, recalls, "She was called filthy names, things thrown at her. Every single place she went they knew about that picture, they saw the picture. They knew about the picture! It's abuse. She was abused."

Her grades took a nosedive. She began skipping school, and often, when she did go, she would hide in the bathrooms.

Putting on a brave face, Jessie spoke with a local news station about her experience, trying to get the message across to other teens that a personal picture can quickly lead to humiliation and public derision. As she told the reporter at the time, “I just want to make sure no one else will have to go through this same thing."

According to her parents, they tried to get help from Jessie's school. The resource officer on campus confronted some students - like that will truly change any behavior, let's be real. He discussed her situation with the prosecutor, but to no avail. Jessie was 18, so the law could not help her. 

So she suffered.

Her parents asked for the school district to intervene - to do something. The superintendent says they addressed it in a parents' night forum (yeah, those are heavily attended - puh-leez), but because Jessie took the picture at home, not at school, they could do little else. No letters were sent out to parents.
And so she continued to suffer - the harassment only getting worse.
Look, as I said, I am a realist. Kids do stupid things - even the smart ones. My daughters are wicked smart, but I do not for one minute think they are immune to short sighted, spur-of-the-moment, I'll-live-forever, nothing-bad-can-happen-to-me behavior.

That is why I can say, the blame for this situation starts with Jessie. SHE took the picture. SHE sent it out into the world, even if she thought it was only making one landing, not taking a nonstop flight.

But what happened after she sent it distributes blame all around. Blame to her parents who didn't routinely check their daughter's phone. (I do.) Blame to the students who callously forwarded the thing like some Nigerian phishing email. (There is a dearth of accountability or empathy in teens these days as they all see themselves as players in their own version of Gossip Girl or The Hills.)  Blame on the school. (Yes, they needed to notify parents immediately.) 
The worst part of this story is what happened next. 

Two months after sharing her cautionary tale with the news reporter, Jessie's Mom entered Jessie's bedroom and found her beloved daughter hanging in the closet, her cell phone at her dangling feet.

It has been eight months since Jessie committed suicide. 

Over a bad choice. And the subsequent bad choices of her classmates.
I talked about Jessie with my daughters this morning. I emphasized that nothing they do is private in this day and age. Any picture taken of them can eventually resurface in any number of ways, in any number of places. So even the hint of innuendo or impropriety in one can come back to bite them in the ass.

I stressed that the blame starts with Jessie. How her thinking-only-in-the-moment actions had devastating consequences.
I made sure they understand that photos like those are considered pornography, and that the seemingly innocent act of forwarding one or receiving one is against the law.

And finally, I hit the most important issue - that nothing, not even humiliation or embarrassment over a naked photo - is worth taking their lives. That facing the music is often the hardest thing we have to do in this life, but that surviving the fallout of a bad choice is how we learn and build character.

I do not demand perfection from my children. Rudy and I set expectations for them, but perfection is not one of them. We expect them to screw up from time to time, and they have come to expect us planting a foot in their ass to make them stand up and face the consequences.

Please discuss Jessie with your children. Don't let her life and death have served no purpose.  And if you don't do it, start now - routinely take your child's cell phone and see what is on it. If they get pissed off, so be it. They'll get over it.

Cell phones and their capabilities are here to stay. Our job as parents is to stay on top of how they are used by our kids. 

Hands-free trust is not an option. And phoning it in when it comes to checking up on them simply won't work. 

 

In memory of Jessie Logan.  A beautiful life disconnected way too soon. 

 

Linda Sharp is an internationally read author, columnist and event speaker. Her work appears online at over 60 Web sites and in print publications from Maine to Malaysia. Sharp is also the owner/editor of Sanity Central.net – home to over fifty hilarious authors and columnists. Give her a Google and read till your eyes dry out! Learn more about Sharp at www.lindasharp.com. Check in with her daily via her highly trafficked blog, Don't Get Me Started and pick up a copy of her latest release, “Femail: A Comic Collision In Cyberspace,” available at booksellers everywhere.