Every parent knows that teen sexting is potentially really, really bad news. Sexting can spread around the school in minutes and humiliate the subject, or worse they can find their way online and become the common property of every pedophile with a broadband connection. But a recent research study also suggests that kids involved in sexting are twice as likely to experience psychological distress and even attempt suicide.

The Education Development Center in Newton, Massachusetts analyzed the results from a group of 23,000 high school students in the Boston area who were surveyed in 2010. The schools were situated in predominately upper-middle class white suburbs, so further research needs to be done on different demographics of teens.

Every few months, a new study is released in the United States or the U.K. giving new statistics and information regarding cyberbullying – the act of minors who threaten or harass each other (sometimes with serious consequences) using technology. But what might larger cyberbullying statistics across the globe, not just from one country, look like?

In a January 2012 survey for Reuters News, global research company Ipsos polled a total of 8,600 adults from 24 different countries to get a better feel for cyberbullying across the globe. The countries surveyed were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.

A student asked me recently: “Why do I need to know when Frankenstein was published? I have a smart phone—I can always find the answer if I need it.” 

He was right. And while I can expound easily and at length about how important it is to understand the time period in which an author was writing in order to fully analyze the novel, for most students in American high schools today, my lecture would fall under the “not relevant—tune out” category, and instead of listening to me, they’d spend the next twenty minutes ignoring my painstakingly planned lesson in favor of tweeting and texting their friends from under their desks.

As all parents know, cyberbullying is a widespread problem that most kids today will unfortunately run into at some point in their lives. Many people brush it off as “kids will be kids,” but for some tween and teen victims the bullying has been the source of anxiety, depression, and other emotional and behavioral problems. Some have even taken their own lives in response to unrelenting cyberbullying.

Facebook is one popular social media network that is unfortunately the platform for a lot of cyberbullying that goes on. Facebook has included bullying FAQ for victims and parents of victims on its website, but has been criticized for not doing more.

An MTV poll shows that kids are both more likely to use vulgarity and slurs online and less likely to be offended when someone else does it. The online survey asked 1,355 people ages 14-24 about the language they and others use when texting or social networking, and found some surprising results. Much of this language is closely associated with cyberbullying, sexting, and other hot teenage issues.

Slurs targeting women, racial minorities, and homosexuals are becoming commonplace online. Kids also admit that they are becoming blasé about reading words like “slut,” “fag,” “retard,” and even the N-word in cyberspace.

AThinLine.org is MTV's attempt to raise awareness and educate teens on the facts about sexting, cyberbullying, and digital dating abuse. More specifically, it aims to give kids the knowledge of what to do when those issues arise in their real lives. The information given is concise, easy to understand, and not preachy.

Some of the topics covered at A Thin Line:

Sexting. Teens are told to look at the potential consequences of sexting, keep private pictures on their own phones, and not to let themselves be pressured into sexting. And if they receive a sext from somebody else, to hit 'delete' rather than 'forward.'

Those of you who have shopped online, use online banking, or have used Facebook may have see a padlock icon appear in your address bar, and may have noticed the address bar has turned green. This happens when your browser is using a secure or safe connection (HTTPS) to communicate with whatever site you are on. Whats the difference? It all has to do with your internet safety settings.

HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol and its used for a majority of websites. Its safe and secure for your day to day browsing like surfing the web, reading blogs, checking your on your favorite sports team or watching videos. The extra "S" in HTTPS stands for "secure" and websites that use HTTPS want to ensure that the information you enter on their site remains private.

In spite of October being National Bullying Prevention Month, November saw two very sad and poignant suicides egged on by cyberbullying. 10-year-olds Jasmine McClain and Ashlynn Conner both took their lives just one week apart.

Cyberbullying has the potential to hurt a victim in every aspect of life, including school performance. If a kid is being bullied, attempts to improve school performance without addressing the bullying are unsuccessful. One California bill aims to correct that.

Anti-bullying bill AB 1156 expands the definition of bullying to recognize its profound effects on victims. Bullying has a detrimental effect on mental and physical health, and bullied kids are unable to participate in school activities and resources like their peers.

All kids need lessons in good digital citizenship, but sometimes a parent is the last person kids want to be teaching them. Media like the Big Help is there to support parents in their roles as educators when it comes to Internet safety and helping to stop cyberbullying.

Common Sense Media, a site dedicated to empowering parents with media reviews and advice for their kids, has paired up with children's television station Nickelodeon to bring parents and kids the Big Help.

Legislators often demand that schools take more responsibility for students who engage in cyberbullying, sexting, or posting fight videos on the Internet – even when it doesn't happen in school or during school hours. One major question many parents are asking themselves is: can a school possibly police their students' online lives? And even if they can, should they?

Actually, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that schools can discipline their students for activities that occur on their own time away from campus, as long as the activities are “disruptive” or “dangerous” to the school or student body. So if a student's online conduct poses a threat to the school or other students (a subjective judgement), they can be punished.

Sexting used to mean sending nude or racy pictures to someone else's cell phone, but today's teens are upping the stakes with a new kind of sexting. Sexting is evolving from pictures to video – and video sexting can be twice as dangerous and twice as risky.

Most of the time, when we talk about sexting (the act of sending nude or suggestive photos of yourself via cell phone) we focus on the harm it does to our girls. Of course I’m concerned about the risks of our girls posing for racy photos and distributing them – especially in high school – but what about our boys? Boys sext, too, almost as much as girls do.

Why do boys sext? A lot of reasons: peer pressure, to be funny or gross, or as a form of flirting. In fact, boys seem particularly likely to flirt by sexting.

Remember DARE? The kids safety program. If you're like me, you were probably part of the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program when you were in elementary school. In fact, I can still recite the saying, “DARE to keep kids off drugs.” I think I even have a ruler printed with the slogan in a drawer somewhere.

Since 1983, DARE has partnered schools and law enforcement officials to teach kids how to avoid involvement with drugs, alcohol, gangs, and violence. In addition to the old standards, they have now begun addressing relatively new problems like cyberbullying, sexting, and online predators.

Texting or for some, sexting is how most kids communicate – it's easy, it's fast, it's convenient, and teens always have their phones with them – but sometimes it can go too far. You've heard of cyberbullying, but have you heard of cyberstalking and text harassment?

Statistics from the U.S. Justice Department reported in 2006 that 23% of stalkers used texting and email to harass their targets. And the kicker is that with texting the victim has to pay for it, sometimes as much as 15 cents a text. Ask your teen if they or their friends have ever been in a relationship where their significant other constantly texted them, almost to the point of harassment. You might be surprised.