'Sexting' popular among teens [telecom]
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
people, despite the risk that intimate pictures are often shared with
others without consent, and that in some states sexting results in a
felony charge.
see: http://www.1010wins.com/Poll-Finds-Sexting-Common-Among-Young-People/5810157
IMHO, while this practice should be discouraged, kids should not be
prosecuted under felony charges for this sort of thing. But I've
heard from some parents who feel aggressive law enforcement is the
right way to go.
David Kaye
>IMHO, while this practice should be discouraged, kids should not be
>prosecuted under felony charges for this sort of thing. But I've
>heard from some parents who feel aggressive law enforcement is the
>right way to go.
This whole WINS news story is troubling because it goes on and on
about young people's brains not being as developed, etc., and them not
knowing the consequences of their actions, etc. What WINS fails to
say is that times have changed and today's younger folks really don't
think of naked photos as any big deal. And why should they be?
Bodies are pretty. We're born naked, after all.
John Mayson
> IMHO, while this practice should be discouraged, kids should not be
> prosecuted under felony charges for this sort of thing. � But I've
> heard from some parents who feel aggressive law enforcement is the
> right way to go.
Which doesn't surprise me because so many parents these days want to
do everything in the world except parent.
I have a 13 year-old son. It's scary that he could be forever labeled
a "sex offender" doing something that hormone-addled boys (and girls)
do. I don't think these parents are thinking this through. Instead
of relying on the local district attorney to do their parenting, they
need to get tough with the kids and need be provide them with a phone
without a camera or MMS capabilities. Or no phone at all. I know
that's paramount to child abuse, but it's for the children.
John
--
John Mayson <jo...@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
David Clayton
I would say that the main point is that technology has (yet again) allowed
us humans to do things that are really not in our best interests.
For all the moral arguments/opinions, it boils down to people being able
to do this sort of thing on a large scale because it is convenient, easy
and low cost. Give the average person access to that combination, and all
sorts of detrimental things happen (just look at the natural
environment.....)
Pray that our advances in technology never allow
nuclear/biological/chemical weapons to become that accessible.
--
Regards, David.
David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.
David Kaye
> I would say that the main point is that technology has (yet again)
> allowed us humans to do things that are really not in our best
> interests.
I still don't see anything wrong or "wrong" with people sending out
naked photos of themselves.
I also don't see how technology has made things any worse today than
before. When I was a kid I read a story about how in the 1920s the
telephone was encoraging people to say things that they would never
say in person because the telephone was "anonymous".
> Give the average person access to that combination, and all sorts of
> detrimental things happen (just look at the natural environment.....)
I remember when the San Francisco Bay Area was so polluted that you
couldn't see across the bay between Oakland and SF on a warm day. The
smog was way too thick. Also, people thought you were crazy if you
ate anything caught in SF bay. The water was way too polluted, too.
Technology has changed all that. Between detectors and clean-up
technologies and smog devices, it has been possible to double the
population of the Bay Area and yet decrease air and water pollution.
I think that ultimately technology versus earlier methods comes out a
wash.
Scott Dorsey
This sort of thing was going on when I was a teenager, quite a few
decades ago. It's just that cellphones didn't exist yet, and all
anyone had were Polaroids and the US Mail. And back then you had to
count to thirty after pulling the tab, separate the negative and
positive, and spread the coater on the print surface....
--
scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
T
Or, some of us had access to a darkroom. We could use standard 35mm
film. I did mostly B&W but did use color on a few occasions but it was
expensive to do so becuase of the increase in number of chemicals
required.
And where was this darkroom? The local Boys Club.
David Kaye
> This sort of thing was going on when I was a teenager, quite a few
> decades ago. It's just that cellphones didn't exist yet, and all
> anyone had were Polaroids and the US Mail. And back then you had to
> count to thirty after pulling the tab, separate the negative and
> positive, and spread the coater on the print surface....
Ah, Polaroids! Those were all the rage when I was a kid. I saw lots
of nude Polaroid photos, some of friends, but most of the girl (and
sometimes boy) down the street from a party or whatever, when I was in
high school.
In fact, the name Polaroid became synonymous with naked photo. "Do
you have any Polaroids of her?" meant "Do you have any naked photos of
her?"
As I developed my own photos I never owned a Polaroid camera. I
produced my own collection of photos, though. It was amazing how many
people would pose for photos, too.
So, sexting and cell phone photos are nothing new at all.
David Kaye
>
> And where was this darkroom? The local Boys Club.
The local Catholic high school I attended had a better darkroom than I
had at home, so most of the naked photos I took were developed
there...
T
@yahoo.com says...
Nice! The whole post-Vatican church was awesomely liberal.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> In fact, the name Polaroid became synonymous with naked photo. �"Do
> you have any Polaroids of her?" meant "Do you have any naked photos of
> her?"
>
> As I developed my own photos I never owned a Polaroid camera. �I
> produced my own collection of photos, though. �It was amazing how many
> people would pose for photos, too.
>
> So, sexting and cell phone photos are nothing new at all.
Actually, it's two very different things, with a critical distinction.
Back then, not everyone owned a Polaroid nor had access to a darkroom.
Polaroid prints weren't cheap, so duplication was difficult. Further,
back then, lots of kids didn't have cameras at all, if they did, they
were quite cheap; only a rare few had good ones. While b&w duplicates
were cheap, they weren't free, and there was still a cost to darkroom
chemicals and photographic paper, as well as the time involved.
Today, in contrast, virtually every kid has a cellphone with a camera
in it which is far easier to use. No film cartridges, no flashcubes,
no developing. Press a button and it's done.
Most significantly, duplication and distribution is very easy and in
most cases free with simply a click. That's a big problem with
sexting--the pictures get shared and shared again. They could even
get posted to the Internet, which didn't exist back then.
It's the incredible ease and low/no-cost of sharing the photos that
makes this a problem. This also applies to embarassing secret
pictures.
We must remember that information that once stayed hidden in the
bottom of a file cabinet is now easily indexed and accessed remotely
via computers and the Internet. To say an element of information was
"always out then, nothing has changed" is not at all accurate; much
_has_ changed thanks to computers.
Bill Horne
Times may have changed, but young people have not: evolution has not
progressed to the point where teenagers are able to appreciate the
long-term consequences of their actions, or to anticipate undesirable
outcomes when short-term aggrandizement takes the place of long-term
societal benefit.
My wife and I have good friends whose son's cell phone was stolen. The
phone contained private pictures of their son and some of his friends,
in their birthday suits. The thieves amused themselves by sending the
pictures to everyone on the phone's number list, including the boy's
teachers.
What followed could best be described as a comedy of errors, with his
school's officials violating almost every procedure, rule, and law that
could possibly be applied: our friends were able to keep their child in
school, but only because his rights had been so flagrantly abused as to
cast doubt on the basic competencies of the school employees involved.
In other words, he got very lucky.
This is a topic that covers a wide swath of industrial life - policy,
technology, legal, and socioeconomic. Let's step back a pace, and
consider the perspective of each player.
1. The radio station is selling advertising, and sex sells. If their
listeners are afraid of it, they'll hype it until the last
drive-time radio is back in the last commuter's garage. They don't
care if it's true: they care about selling soap. I'd say "Shame on
them", but the shame is ours, and they're just exploiting it.
2. The school systems are selling the impression of safety, and
draconian rules and kneejerk reactions make parents think their
tiny cuddwy luvvy ones are "safe". The truth is always different:
anyone who has endured American public-school culture and practice
knows that bureaucrats value conformity over safety, mediocrity
over achievement, and control over common sense. Students who don't
(pun intended) fit the mold are dropped off the end of the assembly
line and swept away: there is no room on that conveyor belt for
free thinkers, risk-takers, or sub-standard cogs destined for the
industrial machine.
3. The students are thumbing their noses at "normalcy", which is what
young people do. In one sense, this _*IS*_ nothing new: children
always question their parents (and their parents' surrogates), and
do things that both will someday regret. What *IS* new is the
technology available to the children for use in getting their
parents' attention, and since every child does whatever it takes to
_get_ the attention, no matter what the century or the government
or the "norm" is 'sposed to be, we're seeing the latest sideshow in
a carnival that has been running since Adam and Eve. Children can't
judge the consequences of their actions - that is a truism as old
as humanity, and they are, after all, _children_ - but for adults
to bleat about the consequences of giving such tools to children is
like telling kids that they shouldn't touch the firearm dad keeps
in the drawer next to his bed.
4. The body politic (that's us) is desperately trying to make Marshall
McLuhan's and Pete Seeger's predictions come true: we're marching
backward into Bonanza land, reaching over our shoulders for an
innocence that we can never quite grasp. Even if we can't have it,
we'll settle for a pale imitation, and demand that civil servants
reassure us again and again that everything is in control and
nothing can ever go wrong - "... while Superman, for the thousandth
time, sells talking dolls and conquers crime, dutifully they learn
the date of birth of Paul Revere".
The question is "Where does this lead us?", and my crystal ball is as
cloudy as everyone else's. My opinions, for what they're worth:
It is, of course true that we were born naked. It's also true that we
can't survive that way, at least in the majority of the world's
climates. Clothing isn't optional, and never has been, so covering our
bodies _is_ the norm, and always will be. That is, however, a separate
issue from the way that an endless line of control freaks uses the
promise of approbation and the threat of humiliation to impose their
will on others: everyone from religious zealots to egomaniacs with
Messiah complexes to senatorial candidates are all eager to order
everyone else to put on the latest fashion and attitudes instead of
putting off their shame.
If everyone were naked, it wouldn't be interesting. In this matter,
Jerry Lewis was right: if we raise our kids well, we can take them
into a whorehouse and it won't make any difference. The fact is that
we live in a society which raises children to be ashamed and secretive
about their bodies and sex, because it's a very effective and
easy-to-implement control mechanism that even the dullards in public
office and the "leaders" in our factories can use without retraining.
It's not the children who need to answer for feelthy peektures on
their cellphones: Walt Kelly was right, long before cellphones or
megapixels had entered our vocabulary.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us".
Bill Horne
--
(Speaking for myself)
(Filter QRM from my address for direct replies)
David Kaye
> back then, lots of kids didn't have cameras at all, if they did,
> they were quite cheap; only a rare few had good ones.
Almost every kid I knew had an Instamatic. True, that if you wanted
to develop a naked photo you couldn't just give it to Walgreen's. You
had to know someone with a darkroom. But finding those people was as
easy as finding someone who could sell you dope.
> We must remember that information that once stayed hidden in the
> bottom of a file cabinet is now easily indexed and accessed remotely
> via computers and the Internet. To say an element of information
> was "always out then, nothing has changed" is not at all accurate;
> much _has_ changed thanks to computers.
But should our reaction change? I really don't think so.
David Kaye
> as humanity, and they are, after all, _children_ - but for adults
> to bleat about the consequences of giving such tools to children is
> like telling kids that they shouldn't touch the firearm dad keeps
> in the drawer next to his bed.
But this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. I don't think it's
the advance of technology that has caused these problems, but the conservatism
brought on by the threat of lawsuits.
School administrators are ready to throw the book at students with naked
photos on their cell phones not because the photos are any worse or any more
available than the Polaroids of old, but because the courts have awarded
ridiculous judgments to plaintiffs in cases involving anything that can be
even remotely construed as "sex".
This stifling does not just apply to photos on cell phones, either.
Parents can't just build playground equipment anymore. Local jurisdictions
such as cities and counties can tear them down because they don't meet certain
safety requirements and the jurisdictions are afraid of being sued. Now, to
put up playgound equipment requires about a $20,000 investment in the "right"
equipment that has been type-approved. No more tire swings.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> Bill Horne <b...@horneQRM.net> wrote:
> > � as humanity, and they are, after all, _children_ - but for adults
> > � to bleat about the consequences of giving such tools to children is
> > � like telling kids that they shouldn't touch the firearm dad keeps
> > � in the drawer next to his bed.
>
> But this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. �I don't
> think it's the advance of technology that has caused these problems,
This is quite true. In the old days a teacher would often merely
orally reprimand a kid for a minor transgression (e.g., running in the
halls or not having a pass). Today administrators routinely slap out
detention or even expulsion punishments for small offenses. The
reason--as widely reported in the newspapers--is to cover their butts
from lawsuits from other parents.
In the 'sexting' issue, the parents who are in favor of criminal
prosecution are those whose kids have _received_ such images; they
want the senders punished.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
>> ... back then, lots of kids didn't have cameras at all, if they
>> did, they were quite cheap; only a rare few had good ones.
>
> Almost every kid I knew had an Instamatic. �True, that if you wanted
> to develop a naked photo you couldn't just give it to
> Walgreen's. �You had to know someone with a darkroom. �But finding
> those people was as easy as finding someone who could sell you dope.
I respectfully have to disagree, having been involved in photography
back then.
There were of course other kids who had both the skill to develop
pictures and access to a darkroom to do it in. But they were a small
number. Further, while some kids might be quite eager to develop nude
shots, there were many others who would find it objectionable. Plenty
of kids, then and now, were not into the "wild side" of things and
wanted no part of it, being nude photography, drugs, cheating,
skipping school, pranks, or other youth activities. Also, there was
some degree of supervision to high school and club darkrooms and some
kids wouldn't want to take the risk of getting caught and kicked out.
(Further, in my day, most people with Instamatics took color pictures.
Of those kids who could develop in high school, the vast majority
could only do b&w, color processing was harder and required more
equipment.)
Which is my point--today no 'middleman' or willing associate is
needed, no special equipment is needed--nothing is needed beside the
cellphone every kid carries at all times. (Many kids might have
access to a camera, but they didn't carry it around with them.)
As mentioned before, _distribution_ today is extremely easy, simply an
email click away. Back then distributing photographic enlargements
meant a trip to the post office for the heavy envelope. How many
copies would a kid mail out? Further, back then distribution meant
another kid would have a physical picture in his/her possession, easy
enough to drop and have to explain. A cell phone image won't fall out
onto the floor of a classroom.
>> We must remember that information that once stayed hidden in the
>> bottom of a file cabinet is now easily indexed and accessed
>> remotely via computers and the Internet. �To say an element of
>> information was "always out then, nothing has changed" is not at
>> all accurate; much _has_ changed thanks to computers.
>
> But should our reaction change? �I really don't think so. �
Again I must respectfully disagree. Because of the ease in which
information (any information, be it nude photos or personal history)
is captured and disseminated, the rules have to change to protect
individuals' privacy.
To put it another way, in my day some kids produced underground
newspapers, it was reasonably easy to type up a stencil, get it
mimeographed, and stand on the corner and pass it out. Some of those
papers were quite shocking (by intent).
I can't help but suspect some of the producers had second thoughts
about their work when they grew older and were happy they were
forgotten. Which they would've been; it's extremely unlikely a
prospective college or employer would ever find out. But today, many
kids discover the hard way their their ancient explicit social website
or wild times has come back to haunt them.
Society has always placed safety guards on dangerous machinery.
John Mayson
> School administrators are ready to throw the book at students with naked
> photos on their cell phones not because the photos are any worse or any more
> available than the Polaroids of old, but because the courts have awarded
> ridiculous judgments to plaintiffs in cases involving anything that can be
> even remotely construed as "sex".
This has been the reason so many employers have zero-tolerance for
anything that even remotely reeks of "sex". All it takes is one person,
be it an employee or student, to do something stupid and suddenly the
employer or school is a "hostile environment".
> This stifling does not just apply to photos on cell phones, either.
> Parents can't just build playground equipment anymore. Local jurisdictions
> such as cities and counties can tear them down because they don't meet certain
> safety requirements and the jurisdictions are afraid of being sued. Now, to
> put up playgound equipment requires about a $20,000 investment in the "right"
> equipment that has been type-approved. No more tire swings.
Due to court rulings here in Texas it's darned near impossible to find a
pool with a diving board.
On Thu, 10 Dec 2009, David Kaye wrote:
> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>
>> back then, lots of kids didn't have cameras at all, if they did,
>> they were quite cheap; only a rare few had good ones.
>
> Almost every kid I knew had an Instamatic. True, that if you wanted
> to develop a naked photo you couldn't just give it to Walgreen's. You
> had to know someone with a darkroom. But finding those people was as
> easy as finding someone who could sell you dope.
I was the most na�ve kid on the planet and *I* knew how to get this done.
Didn't know a thing about dope, but needed something developed. What I'm
saying here is if *I* knew how it was probably very common knowledge in
1982.
John
--
John Mayson <jo...@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
***** Moderator's Note *****
I probably matched you in na�vet�, but "knowing how" and "doing" are
always different things: remember that we all "knew how" to make
babies, but very few of us actually got the chance to risk doing so
during our high school sentences.
I was a member of the photo club at my school, and I made my own
passport photos at the tender age of eighteen, so I "knew how" to run a
darkroom and mix chemicals (at least for B&W prints), but I wouldn't have
dared to recreate any racy images: we just didn't do that where I came
from. I'm no saint, you understand; the reason I wanted a passport was
a reflection of activities I both engaged in and contemplated which were
not "politically correct", then or now - but dealing in
sexually-explicit pictures just wasn't done. We could debate endlessly
on the social standards, societal value imprinting, and socioeconomic
norms that affected my actions. The end result was that we just didn't
do that.
Times, as I said, have changed, but children have not. The point I
tried to convey in my previous post on the subject is that we, as a
society, need to come to a consensus on our sexual mores and
expectations, and to convey those rules to our kids. So far, we're
laging way behind our children in dealing with this issue.
FWIW. YMMV.
Bill Horne
Moderator
David Kaye
> Again I must respectfully disagree. Because of the ease in which
> information (any information, be it nude photos or personal history)
> is captured and disseminated, the rules have to change to protect
> individuals' privacy.
Last year, Hong Kong actor/singer Edison Chen's photos were uploaded
to the Internet because someone had stolen his laptop. He ended up
apologizing to the various women who were clearly engaging in sex with
him, some of whom were stars themselves. The photos are as explicit
as explicit can be. It was clear that those were supposed to be
private.
In the case of the cell phones, people are taking photos of
themselves! And if they're taking photos of others, it's clear that
they're posing for them. As you or someone else said, it's the
recipients who are complaining, not the people in the photos.
> I can't help but suspect some of the producers had second thoughts
> about their work when they grew older and were happy they were
> forgotten.
With the Internet nothing is forgotten anymore. I was surprised to
Google my name and the name of my grade school and come up with a
newspaper photo that was taken of me when I was 8 years old.
By the way it was at that photo shoot that I learned that the press
lies: I was asked to stand in front of some pictures kids had drawn as
if to imply that those were my pictures. The photographer wouldn't
let me stand in front of mine. I hated that because mine were better
and I didn't want to be associated with bad art. At age 8. I
remember it well. I am quite surprised, maybe astounded to know that
someone scanned all those old newspapers and that an OCR system
somewhere picked out my name and it got into Google's search engine.
I fully expect to see copies of my old underground mimeo newspapers to
show up any day soon.
> Which they would've been; it's extremely unlikely a prospective
> college or employer would ever find out. But today, many kids
> discover the hard way their their ancient explicit social website or
> wild times has come back to haunt them.
I think that this snooping thing is going to blow over. It'll blow
over when employers realize that they won't be able to hire anybody
anymore; too many people will have had explicit photos and politically
incorrect content on the Web.
har...@hallikainen.com
> �I am quite surprised, maybe astounded to know that
> someone scanned all those old newspapers and that an OCR system
> somewhere picked out my name and it got into Google's search
It looks like Google is doing OCR on pdf images. I got a Google Alert
this week showing my name in a 1972 Broadcasting Yearbook. I checked
the link, and there was no embedded text, just scanned images. Anyway,
it is pretty neat that images are now being OCRd.
Harold
***** Moderator's Note *****
I'm glad that my old CIA ID had only a number. Air American, though,
used names, to the extent that anyone flying for them had a "real"
name. I'm glad I've kept my alternate identity and escape routes
up-to-date all these year.
Bill Horne
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> In the case of the cell phones, people are taking photos of
> themselves! �And if they're taking photos of others, it's clear that
> they're posing for them. �As you or someone else said, it's the
> recipients who are complaining, not the people in the photos.
Not always. Sometimes kids sneak pictures of others, such as in a
locker room or in an embarassing situation. Sometimes they are
private photos and the person who took them distributes them.
> I think that this snooping thing is going to blow over. �It'll blow
> over when employers realize that they won't be able to hire anybody
> anymore; too many people will have had explicit photos and politically
> incorrect content on the Web.
I'm not sure about that. Different people behave differently--while
many might have troubling material about them on the web, a great many
others will have nothing at all because they do not lead such wild
lives. (Contrary to myth, a great many kids lead extremely tame
lives.) It will also depend on the extent of what's out there--
someone with just one nasty reference will be in a more competitive
position than someone who has multiple references.
In my personal opinion, the existence of computers and the Internet--
making storage, indexing, and remote access of personal information so
easy--has changed the 'lay of the land'. Old privacy laws are not
adequate to meet the new world
I should note that journalists and some others sharply disagree with
my viewpoint. They take a very strong stance on the "public's right
to know".
In your example, the ancient photo of you at age eight, in my opinion
is not a matter of public interest, even if you were to become a major
figure. But the $64,000 question is how would society differentiate
between private stuff and matters that are of a legitimate public
interest? For example: suppose someone at age 19 was active in a
very extremist far-right or far-left group--should that be part of
their record when they turn 30? If they run for political office when
they're 50?
David Kaye
> In my personal opinion, the existence of computers and the
> Internet-- making storage, indexing, and remote access of personal
> information so easy--has changed the 'lay of the land'. Old privacy
> laws are not adequate to meet the new world
All I can say is thank goodness I have a common name. Many people
think I'm a voiceover actor from Vancouver. While I've done v/o a
little and I've been a DJ and all that, I'm not the Vancouver guy.
Hopefully someone will see fit to deposit some of his money into my
bank account one day...
***** Moderator's Note *****
Ah, but you have a different telephone number than he does, and that's
all anyone needs to tell you apart.
Bill Horne
Dave Garland
> All I can say is thank goodness I have a common name. Many people
> think I'm a voiceover actor from Vancouver. While I've done v/o a
> little and I've been a DJ and all that, I'm not the Vancouver guy.
> Hopefully someone will see fit to deposit some of his money into my
> bank account one day...
>
> ***** Moderator's Note *****
>
> Ah, but you have a different telephone number than he does, and that's
> all anyone needs to tell you apart.
I dunno. I've got a landline number, a cell number, a fax number, two
or three google voice numbers. I don't even recognize some of my own
numbers, so it's a bit much to expect others to. But I'm pretty sure
I'm not the Vancouver guy, either.
Dave
***** Moderator's Note *****
Yes, but ...
... your landline number is probably on your checks, or your business
card, so it's "you" for practical purposes. It's certainly usable as a
"disqualifier" field to _separate_ you from guy-in-Vancouver, and
therefor it will keep people from mistaking you for him.
Bulk (snail) mail marketers spend a lot of time trying _not_ to send
mail to those who won't respond: that's why they love telephone
numbers, which are more valuable to show what you are _not_ (not in
Vancouver, for example) than what you _are_.
Bill Horne
Moderator
David Kaye
> Bulk (snail) mail marketers spend a lot of time trying _not_ to send
> mail to those who won't respond: that's why they love telephone
> numbers, which are more valuable to show what you are _not_ (not in
> Vancouver, for example) than what you _are_.
Area-based phone numbers are a thing of the past. I live in San
Francisco. I have 3 housemates. We all have cell phones. One has an
area code of 831 (Santa Cruz), another has 650 (San Mateo area), and
the third has 206 (Seattle). None of them bothered to change their
numbers even though they moved to SF long ago. Oh, and we have not
had a landline in out household in over 5 years.
I routinely converse and text with people with area codes all over the
nation who are actually in SF or Oakland or somewhere else locally.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Since you _do_ have a cellular number and you _don't_ have a landline
number, you're a lot more likely to have a fair amount of disposable
income than someone whose pattern is vice versa. It's all grist for
the mill!
Bill Horne
Moderator
John Levine
> landline number, you're a lot more likely to have a fair amount of
> disposable income than someone whose pattern is vice versa.
That's not true any more. Prepaid mobiles are now cheap enough that
they're a reasonable choice for your only phone on a limited budget.
I just got some Tracfones for $20 each, and if you're careful to use
promotion codes the airtime is about 10 cents/min.
People with only a landline tend to be old, people with only a mobile
tend to be young, but I don't think you can assume that one would be
richer than the other.
R's,
John
***** Moderator's Note *****
Noone in the direct mail industry assumes that one group is richer
than the other: they just know for a fact that young cell phone users
are much more likely to dispose of their income on high-profit,
non-essential things like music downloads and CD's, clothes,
carbonated beverages, brand-name footwear, and quick-serve
restaurants.
People with only a landline _are_ old, and they're not going to buy
rap music, Trademark shoes, "power" beverages, or Tommy Hilfigger
pants. They not even going to eat at McWendyKing unless they're
baby-sitting their grandchildren.
That means that those who have only a landline are much more likely to
get a coupon promising that "kids eat free" during the holidays. Those
with only a cellphone are much more likely to get a text message from
"ladi goo-goo" promising that they can get Nike shoes by going to
BurgerDonald.
It's _ALL_ grist for the mill: if I know your zip code and your age, I
can identify you and the products you're most likely to buy and
whether sales promotions will affect your buying pattern.
Bill Horne
Moderator
Neal McLain
Ok, Bill, identify me. I'm 74 and my zip is 77422.
Neal McLain
***** Moderator's Note *****
You're opinionated, intolerant of liars, unimpressed by advertising,
disappointed with the government, and you can spot a phoney a mile
away.
Oh, wait, that's me, too: all I had to know was your age. Your zip
code tells me that I'll never have to worry about you sticking a knife
in my back: if you want to put a knife in me, you'll look me in the
eye when you do it. ;-)
Since I've been out of that business for over 14 years now, I'll let
others tell us your brands of car, candy, and capitalism.
Bill Horne
Moderator
John David Galt
I'm with you. Kids exposing themselves (or for that matter, doing
things they shouldn't with other kids) arguably deserve to be charged
with misdemeanors, but they don't deserve to be lumped with molestors.
They're kids being kids.
For that matter, if the pictures do get out, those passing them on
should get some leniency too. The law against child porn exists, and
is justified, only to deter adults from misusing kids. Therefore, if
a picture came from a kid misbehaving by himself or with other kids
and not from some adult abusing him/her, it ought to be a lesser
offense (privacy violation or maybe copyright) to have that picture.
And there need to be safeguards against people being punished for
accidentally seeing such things because they went to a website that
promised legal porn, or even unknowingly having them on their hard
drive because their computer got hacked or virus-infected. Both have
happened, and the policies that caused the victims to be successfully
prosecuted are still in place.