"Sexting"

Nancy Gibbs is typically a favorite columnist of mine because she chooses non-traditional topics or has unique spins on familiar ones. This week in Time she discusses the phenomenon of "sexting"- illicit pictures that teens send over their cell phones. May it also be noted that this phenomenon is occurring on social networking sites. Here's a quote from the article:

[A] study released last December found that one in five teens had sent or
posted a naked picture of themselves, and a third had received such a picture or
video by text message or e-mail. One school principal suspects that a random
ransacking of the phones in his school would find indecent pictures on half to
two-thirds of them. Three out of four teens say posting suggestive stuff "can
have serious negative consequences," which means they know it's dumb--and they
do it anyway.

Whoa. This should make us very sad. Let us remember that technology isn't inherently good or bad, but it isn't neutral either. Technology is a social force and shapes how we view the world, and not just what we view of the world. In this context then, we need to remind ourselves that the trace of internet information is never fully erased. An illicit picture posted on the internet or sent to another phone never really goes away. A mistake in childhood will last every time a child-turned-adult wants a job, desires intimacy in marriage, or wants to forget the mistakes of the past.

Unfortunately, the rapid transimission of information is rendering newspapers obsolete, and apparently it's creating an illicit sexual underworld in teen culture. These are not good things, but I have no idea how we stem the tide. Any thoughts?