PASTE EVENT BLURB HERE: Teens today are coming of age in a highly sexualized, self-conscious digital environment where pornography, hookups, trade in nude selfies, sexting, body ratings, and other explicit behaviors are disturbingly common. An environment where identity and self-esteem are being shaped by social platforms that provide instant judgment, and a person’s value is being summed by their sexual desirability. An environment where that judgment too often is designed to bully, shame or coerce. All this is occurring in a country where teens are now being prosecuted for violation of child pornography laws.

PUT SPEAKER INFO AND BIO HERE: Nancy Jo Sales, award-winning journalist and author of American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, will examine the effects of social media on our teens’ social and sexual attitudes, their self-esteem and relationships. She will discuss what parents can do to help their sons and daughters negotiate this new reality: how to talk to our kids about social media, how to ask the right questions, and point out the key pitfalls to avoid. She will also recommend ways to mitigate the extreme sexism embedded in social media sites, and how Silicon Valley can alter its contribution to this phenomenon.

Nancy Jo Sales graduated summa cum laude from Yale, is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, author of The Bling Ring, and lives in New York City with her teenager.