An interesting article in the January/March 2015 Journal of Forensic Nursing was published entitled "Characteristics of Child Sexual Assault within a Child Advocacy Center Client Population" (Carlson, Grassley, Reis, & Davis, 2015). This article, in part, provided data analysis that identified those individuals to whom children disclosed abuse and how those individuals were related to the victim child. "The relationship category 'other' included family members other than the mother, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, victim disclosure through writing, a witness of the CSA, and unknown/unclear" (p. 17). Interestingly, the data that encompassed the "other" category resulted within the top three disclosure means for the age categories in the study. In other words, 23% of the 2- to 5-year-olds, 18% of the 6- to 10-year-olds, and 28 % of the 11- to 17-year-olds who were studied disclosed abuse to this "other category," which did not include fathers, siblings, or grandparents.

Things are certainly not what they used to be. Since my undergraduate college days, a mere 20 years ago, I've witnessed the advancements in technology that has resulted in an abundance of information at each person's fingertips. Access to movies, games, friends, medical records, personal accounts, shopping, and navigation can be achieved through the touch of one finger. And that's just the tip of the ice burg. Our rapid technological growth has provided global communication, vast amounts of valuable information, and the opportunity to become internationally connected. Our young children are capable of easily navigating electronics such as laptops, "smart" phones, computer software, and phone "apps." They serve as what I refer to as "my generation's personal IT department" and can update their social media status quicker than lightening by using only two thumbs. It would seem as though the sky is the limit[horizontal ellipsis]but are personal connections being sacrificed, and if so, how detrimental is the outcome?

I ask this question in response to a recent experience. I am a part of a child protection team at an academic medical center and work primarily with the pediatric population. In my role, children are evaluated for multiple types of abuse that span the spectrum. The team performs a thorough evaluation in cases that include physical and sexual abuse to medical neglect. In a recent encounter, a disclosure was made of ongoing sexual abuse in a child who was 8 years old. As tears ran down her face, this child's mother verbalized that she felt hurt that her daughter did not confide in her about the abuse sooner, and guilty from not detecting that the abuse was happening in her own home. The mother reported that she was heartbroken for her daughter and recognized the profound effect that the abuse would have on her child's life moving forward. When asked how she discovered what was happening with her daughter, she replied that she had found several new videos on her cell phone that her child had made while in her room. The videos were a set of six that were similar to each other: the screen was black, and there was only one voice speaking. Her mother informed me that the clips were taken as the child was in her dark room at bedtime. The voice was that of the 8-year-old girl, and over the six separate videos, she was heard to be crying, talking about her friends, and disclosing the details of the sexual abuse that she had endured at the hands of her stepfather.

While deeply concerned about the disclosure itself, I also paused to think about the means that this child felt safe enough to disclose something that she had been keeping a secret for the past several months. I could think of many common reasons why she would potentially not tell her mother, regardless of the closeness of their relationship[horizontal ellipsis]but to disclose sexual abuse to a cell phone? I thought about how this child found security in her own bed, in her dark bedroom, with her mother's cell phone in her hand. The question crossed my mind as to whether she would have ever disclosed to an actual person at all. Was it the anonymity that made her feel safe, or do our children feel more connected with a smart phone in their hands? Does this type of abuse disclosure foreshadow future "other" categories?

In the end, I had more conflicting opinions than resolutions about how I felt toward children and their access to technology. Obviously, this is a complex topic, and one case study cannot change the way that we think[horizontal ellipsis]or can it? Can it change the oversight that we provide and how we manage our children's technology access? Will we put our smart phones down and plan activities to become more personally connected? Personally, I will be watching to see how this evolves over the next 20 years.

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