Motorola Super Bowl Ad and Sexting

| February 7, 2010

Tonight during the Super Bowl, CBS aired a Motorola Commercial with Megan Fox.  I’ve embedded the commercial below, while it isn’t graphic it wouldn’t be appropriate to watch with kids in the room.


While there were a number of raunchy ads during the Super Bowl this was was incredibly disappointing.  Why?  Mainly because this paints sexting in a positive light.  Sexting is fast becoming a problem among teens.  One young man in Perry, IA learned that it can come with criminal consequences as well.

Here it’s laughed at.  Ironically CBS back in January reported on this problem:

While it may be shocking, the practice of "sexting" – sending nude pictures via text message – is not unusual, especially for high schoolers around the country.

This week, three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves, and three male classmates in a western Pennsylvania high school who received them, are charged with child pornography.

In October a Texas eighth-grader spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a nude picture on his cell phone that a fellow student sent him.

Roughly 20 percent of teens admit to participating in "sexting," according to a nationwide survey (pdf) by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

"This is a serious felony. They could be facing many years in prison," CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom said of the six teens in Pennsylvania.

But, Bloom added, "What are we going to do, lock up 20 percent of America’s teens?"

CBS in it’s reporting of this problem couldn’t get the name of the organization who commissioned the study they refer to.  It is The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (not The National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy).

The study says that 20% of teens overall have either sent or posted online nude or seminude pictures of video of themselves.  With 11% of young teen girls (ages 13-16).  Also 39% of all teens are sending sexually suggestive messages via text, email, and IM with 48% of all teens reporting receiving them.  Houston we have a problem.  So when Lisa Bloom asks, “what are we going to do, lock up 20% of American’s teens?”

No, but we don’t put commercials on your network that encourages the behavior either.  Shame on Motorola for making this ad, shame on Megan Fox for participating it, and shame on CBS for airing it.

Also to all parents, if you don’t monitor your kids’ cell phone’s, iPods, PDAs, and computers what the heck is wrong with you?

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Category: Engaging Culture, Youth Culture

About the Author ()

Shane Vander Hart is the founder and editor-in-chief of Caffeinated Thoughts.  He is also the President of 4:15 Communications, LLC, a social media & communications consulting/management firm.  He is a communications director for American Principles Project’s Preserve Innocence Initiative.  Prior to this Shane spent 20 years in youth ministry serving in church, parachurch, and school settings.  He has also served as an interim pastor and is a sought after speaker and pulpit fill-in.  Shane has been married to his wife Cheryl since 1993 and they have three kids.  Shane and his family reside near Des Moines, IA.  You can connect with Shane on Facebook or follow him on Twitter and Google +.
  • http://NoahDavidSimon.blogspot.com Noah David Simon

    I agree… CBS is bad. Especially considering they tried censoring a Pro Life ad. I’d like to see some accountability, sadly I’m not certain that creating any accountability will help because their poor values will infiltrate any controlled system

    personally I don’t watch much TV… I’m too busy blog commenting

    your kids could use some exercise. they are getting fat… and that won’t help them with their Sexting anyway… I’m not sure fat is as in as the marketing people are saying.
    .-= Noah David Simon´s last blog ..Gay Judge at Prop. 8 trial highlights Judicial issues =-.

  • http://truthbeforedishonor.wordpress.com John Hitchcock

    Personal responsibility is so passe these days. It’s always someone else’s fault for what you did. Or it’s never your fault for planting a seed in someone else’s mind.

    The buck never got here.
    .-= John Hitchcock´s last blog ..Leftist Elitist Pig Gets The Vapors =-.

    • http://www.caffeinatedthoughts.com Shane Vander Hart

      @John Hitchcock, It’s always easy to blame somebody else. Ultimately this problem falls back on parents who need to know what their kids are up to. Perhaps their 13-year-old daughter doesn’t need a laptop and cell phone… my kids seem to do just fine without them. I even have the passwords to their email which was the condition for letting them have them to begin with.

      • http://truthbeforedishonor.wordpress.com John Hitchcock

        @Shane Vander Hart, I agree very much. Parents definitely need to control what comes in and what goes out with their kids. But when it comes to teen kids, it is also fully the teen’s responsibility. Back when my daughter was a teen and doing the “parent shuffle” I allowed her to IM on my computer, but only when I was there. I wanted to make certain certain untoward stuff didn’t come through, and I did once or twice fire off an IM to someone on her list that crossed the boundary.

        Every once in a while, she’d send off a POS message on her IM. To me, that meant a $200 car (piece of crud). It was only 3 or 4 years later that I found out the IM meaning — Parent Over Shoulder.

        So, yeah, parents have to be extra vigilant and those who aren’t shoulder a lot of the blame. But even those who are won’t catch it all. And it falls back on the actor in the event who shoulders the blame.
        .-= John Hitchcock´s last blog ..Leftist Elitist Pig Gets The Vapors =-.

  • http://kenreads.wordpress.com WKen

    I assume that Megan Fox has some kind of talent and isn’t just known for being pretty.

    I would wish that SHE would be upset that this is the kind of thing she’s being known for.

    That being said (and back to your real point) … yes. This is absurd, and it laughs at the real problem with sexting — that the message a girl sends her one-and-only-true-forever-love-of-her-life (for this week) will wind up with the whole football team and the dirty old man down the street.
    .-= WKen´s last blog ..Friday Report =-.

    • http://www.caffeinatedthoughts.com Shane Vander Hart

      @WKen, great point.

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