The sexting timebomb

A GIRL, 16, wakes after a drunken night at a party. She is naked on a strange bed and written in Texta on her stomach are the words: "Soon to be seen on (Yo)u-tube".

She has no memory of the night before and the incident, which happened in Melbourne last year, has terrified the teenager who lives in fear of what photos or video might appear at any time.

It's a shocking case, but one that demonstrates how easily images, often taken with a mobile phone, can make their way into cyberspace.

And the damage is forever. Employers often Google potential employees to check their past. Reputations and careers are one click away from irreparable damage.

Experts warn the trend of "sexting" - sending lewd images of oneself or others by text message - is only beginning.

Adolescent psychologist and National Coalition Against Bullying Cyber Safety Committee chair Dr Michael Carr-Gregg says Australia has only seen "the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to the sexting phenomenon that is occurring in the United States and Britain.

"I would hear about sexting cases from schools at least once a week now. I can't begin to describe how common it has become," he says.

"The worst case I've been involved with was a 16-year-old girl filmed having her first sexual experience with her boyfriend in a shower last year. The boy's friend filmed it without her knowledge and sent it to virtually every person she knew.

"The impact on that girl is horrific. The psychological consequences of that will live with her for a very long time and I'm not entirely sure she will ever recover."

But sexting is not just images taken without consent.

There is also an unprecedented trend of young women taking explicit photos of themselves and sending them to others. It's a trend that has shocked the psychological community.

"There's the case of 13-year-old schoolgirls in Tasmania who have photographed themselves with various objects inserted in different orifices. And we have eight-year-old girls in New South Wales taking topless photos of themselves," Dr Carr-Gregg says.

"As an adolescent psychologist, I've been scratching my head about this. I think there are two things. The teenage brain is a work in progress and one of the unique characteristics of teenage girls is the inability to predict the consequences of their actions.

"Secondly, they believe there is an anonymity in what they are doing because there is not an immediate face-to-face reaction."

Mobile phones have become so indispensable to young people that psychologists have coined a new condition called "Nomophobia" - a fear of not having a mobile phone.

A 2007 Australian Communications and Media Authority report found virtually every family had at least one mobile phone, with an average of almost three mobiles per family.

It found the amount of time children and teens spent text messaging increased rapidly from an average of one minute a day for eight to 11-year-olds to half an hour for 15 to 17-year-olds.

The latest Roy Morgan research shows 23 per cent of children aged six to 13 in Australia own a mobile phone. For 12 to 13-year-olds, the figures jump to 55 per cent for boys and 65 per cent for girls.

Text messaging is the single most common form of cyber bullying and is used to deliver and spread death threats, insults and rumours.

Principals can now confiscate students' phones and hand them to police as evidence if there is a reasonable suspicion the phone has been used to record a crime. But Dr Carr-Gregg says the moves do not go far enough.

''Unlike Great Britain, which has a cyber safety curriculum in their schools, we don't have any formal cyber safety education," he says.

"Sexting, as we've seen it so far, is only the tip of the iceberg . . . we've got kids as young as eight engaging in this behaviour. We need to look at this at the primary school level."

Social researcher and What's Happening To Our Girls? author, Maggie Hamilton, says sexting is very concerning.

"It's dehumanising. Girls are objectifying themselves. They are increasingly behaving in ways that are really dangerous," she says.

"Sometimes it's live sex acts. It's almost a calling card now to send a photograph of yourself to boys to say, 'Are you interested?'.

"Sexual assault units are seeing girls who have done something inappropriate on their phone and are then being blackmailed to ramp it up under threat their parents will find out.

"We've got 12-year-olds having sex. I have spoken to teachers who can't believe how many 14-year-olds girls are having sex - some who've had up to 20 partners and some who will have multiple partners in a night."

Dr Carr-Gregg says he finds it heartbreaking that a lack of adult supervision has allowed such abuse to increase. He says many parents are "digital neanderthals" with little or no idea of how technology works.

"It basically boils down to parental supervision and education," he says.

"This is the first generation who grew up with a mouse in its hand.

"The risks that can be taken are enormous, but once it's on the net it's there forever. You can never take it back."