If your teenager is like others of her generation, she’s always on her phone, and this may be more of a family wellness issue than you might think. One extension of social networking via handheld electronic devices involves a kind of sexual networking known as ‘sexting’, or sexy texting. In the past, reports of teen sexting have indicated that teenage girls with poor social wellness text sexual messages and images of themselves due to peer pressure, or else it was the result of a youthful indiscretion ‘for your eyes only’ nude image from a girlfriend to a boyfriend via her mobile phone. However, a recent study has shown that sexting is on the rise and teenagers generally view the act of it as acceptable behaviour.
The study was conducted by Donald Strassberg, and he and his colleagues wanted to determine how prevalent teen sexting is and whether teens participating in sexting were aware of the risks to their wellbeing in terms of charges of being in possession or distribution of child pornography, and possibly being legally labelled as a registered sex offender. For the study, 606 high school students answered questions about their sexting experiences, how knowledgeable they were of the consequences of being caught sexting, and their personal views on the practice.
The results were that sending sexually explicit photos via a mobile phone is more common among teens than most people realize. Almost 20% of the students reported that they had sent sexual images of themselves using their phones, and nearly double that number said they had received such images. 25% of the students who had received sexual images admitted that they had forwarded the images on to others, and a third of these students did so in spite of knowing that there could be serious legal consequences if caught and charged by authorities. This group of students was the most likely to consider sexting activities as acceptable behaviour in comparison to high school students who had not reported forwarding sexual images.
The researchers therefore concluded that there needs to be more action taken to stop teens from sexting and from viewing the practice as teens and curtail sexting as acceptable behaviour: ‘These results argue for educational efforts such as cell phone safety assemblies, awareness days, integration into class curriculum and teacher training, designed to raise awareness about the potential consequences of sexting among young people.’
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