Love it or hate it, sexual health education in the
U.S. experiences a dearth of funding and valid information,
and people are fighting back. Efforts like volunteer
teaching programs, fundraising, and awareness campaigns
strive to give today's youth the information they need
to make healthy decisions, but perhaps one of the most
powerful moves made in this arena has been the push
to use SMS and mobile applications to reach teens with
comprehensive, factual information on sex and sexual
health. After all, what better way is there to reach
a teenager than through their cell phone?
National organization Planned Parenthood has recognized
the value of texting in reaching a young audience. It
has launched a campaign called In Case You're Curious
(ICYC) that allows teens to confidentially submit any
questions they may have about sex and sexual health
via text and receive a non-judgmental answer within
24 hours. ICYC currently serves Colorado, Nevada, New
Mexico, and Wyoming, with instructions for registering
for the service in each state on Planned Parenthood's
website.
Some state governments have taken up similar initiatives
to ICYC, like New Mexico, which suffers from the highest
teen pregnancy rates in the U.S.; the state's department
of health has launched a program allowing teens to confidentially
text their questions about sex to the number 66746,
after registering once by texting "NMTEEN" to the number,
and receive answers within 24 hours. This program also
offers an option for parents who have questions about
their teens' sexuality and health, who can text "NMPARENT"
to the same number, then ask away and also receive responses
within 24 hours.
Many other states boast similar local programs, like
North Carolina's initiative called The Birds and Bees
Text Line, run by the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention
Campaign of North Carolina and funded in part by the
State Department of Health and Human Services. Teens
send anonymous texts with questions and receive anonymous,
non-judgmental responses within 24 hours, in the same
model as ICYC and New Mexico's program. California has
also embraced the power of SMS for sex ed, establishing
a program called HookUp 365247 that lets teens statewide
subscribe to sexual health information texts, or text
in a zip code to receive a text containing nearby health
clinic referrals.
Some major cities have also established sexual health
initiatives that rely on texting, seeking to aid the
youth of densely populated cities. These cities include
Chicago; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; and Toronto,
which all offer programs in which teens can text a number,
choose from a list of common sex-related questions,
and receive an automatic response by text.
While text messaging initiatives represent a significant
branch of the effort to educate teens on sexual health,
there are several sex ed programs that have taken advantage
of the youth's obsession with their phones in different
ways. While web pages offering comprehensive, factual
information regarding sex as well as Q and A features,
such as ScarletTeen and Go Ask Alice, were not specifically
designed for mobile viewing, they constitute an effective
mobile education tool for many teens. These pages are
great resources for teens with smart phones who feel
more comfortable with the confidentiality of reading
up on sexual health on their own device away from prying
eyes.
Some initiatives, instead of SMS, are diving into the
platform of mobile applications in an effort to reach
teens. The United States' most populous city has launched
a program aimed to help educate young people, called
NYC Teen, complete with its own application available
for download on smart phones. The program and app are
advertised on signs on the streets and subways of New
York, and in pamphlets distributed in classrooms by
health education teaching programs like Peer Health
Exchange. NYC Teen offers abundant information on both
sex and wellness in general, complete with maps of clinics
in New York and information on free or low-cost care.
Even more recently, a free app called Seventeen Days,
available on Apple and Android devices, was launched
as a nationwide effort to use mobile apps as a medium
for sexual health education.
As much fuss as there may be that cell phones are damaging
our youth, it's clear that they offer at least some
benefits; the ubiquity of cell phones and texting, particularly
among teens, affords a powerful medium by which to educate
the youth and prepare them to make healthy lifelong
decisions.
About the Author -
Sharon Housley is the VP of Marketing for NotePage,
Inc. a software company for communication software solutions.
http://www.notepage.net
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