Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Snapchat: 150 Million Images Sent Each Day

Apparently, people love Snapchat, the messaging service with pics that disappear moments after you’ve receive them. According to co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, people are sending about 150 million photos a day.

Instagram, perhaps Snapchat’s closest competitor, is officially way, way behind, with an estimated 40 million new pics uploaded each day. While it’s true that Instagram’s shots are designed to stay on the site (at least until they’re manually taken down), they’re down to a little more than a fifth of Snapchat’s activity, when last quarter they were about dead even.

The idea of Snapchat is, true to its logo, downright spooky, an app that tells your kids they can do whatever they want because a smartphone – a tool which has proven to do plenty of suspect things with your data – promises not to save that picture.” But sending a picture that self destructs doesn’t save you from the Internet’s virality. Even with the app’s tracker-blocking design, people are taking screenshots of the pictures before they self-destruct.

“Since young people are the driving force behind Snapchat… People under 18 may be swapping images that are legally classified as child pornography, and they may be doing it with less trepidation than they would if they were using SMS, since they assume the person they’re sending the photo to won’t screenshot their body,” wrote Digital Trends Kate Knibbs in December.

Snapchat lets you select how long you want your pic to appear for, but as far as screencaps [taking screenshots] are concerned, “Any time at all,” is already too long.

Source: Digital Trends
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/150-million-snaps-sent-a-day-on-snapchat/

Study: Teen Boys Forward More Sexts Than Girls

A new study, published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, finds that teen boys were almost twice as likely as teen girls to have forwarded a received sext.

Researchers surveyed 1,000 black and Latino 10th graders in a southeast Texas school district about their sexting habits. Among black teens, 27 percent of girls and 23 percent of boys said they had snapped a nude photo of themselves and passed it along. Among Latino teens, 20 percent of boys and 17 percent of girls had done the same.

Although this study focused on minority teens, researchers said their sexting numbers lined up with rates recorded among “white private high school students” as well as more diverse groups of minors.

It was in the distribution of these images that boys and girls’ behavior begins to diverge. When an explicit photograph hits their phones, the teen boys in the study were almost twice as likely as the teen girls to have forwarded it beyond its intended audience. And boys were much more likely than girls to have received one of these errant sexts from an oversharing peer.

Source: Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/03/04/sexting_statistics_teen_boys_and_girls_sext_in_equal_numbers_but_boys_forward.html

Another Study Links 'Sexting' to Sexual Activity in Teens

A new study of Dutch teens finds that few of them frequently engage in risky online activity related to sex, such as sending naked photos to strangers and searching for sex partners, but those who do are more prone to have casual sex in real life.

"There seems to be a relationship between engagement in online and offline sexual risk behavior," said study author Susanne Baumgartner, a graduate student at the University of Amsterdam. "Adolescents who engaged in offline sexual risk behavior were also likely to engage in online sexual risk behavior."

The authors of the new study wanted to understand how "risky" sexual behavior online (talking with strangers about sex on the Internet, searching for someone to have sex with and sexting to strangers) is related to "risky" sexual behavior offline (having casual sex).

Baumgartner's team surveyed over 1,700 Dutch adolescents aged 12 to 18. Those at highest risk of risky behavior online "were less satisfied with their lives, had higher levels of sensation-seeking . . . and were lower educated," the study authors found.

The researchers suggested that kids at higher risk deserve more attention in terms of preventing risky sexual activity.

Jeff Temple, a psychologist and an assistant professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch who studies teenage sexuality, said the study provides "more evidence that the boundary that separates offline and online lives is becoming increasingly blurred." Parents should pay attention, Temple noted, because if a teen is sexting, he or she may also be engaging in risky sexual activity in the real world.

The study appeared online Nov. 5 and in the December print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Source: MedlinePlus
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_131178.html

Sexting Again Linked to Risky Sex Among Teens

One out of every seven Los Angeles high schoolers with a cell phone has sent a sexually-explicit text message or photo, according to results of a 2011 survey that also found "sexters" more likely to engage in risky sex behaviors.

In the new study, the LA teens who had sent racy texts were seven times more likely to be sexually active than those who said they'd never sexted.

The findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, are based on 1,839 students in Los Angeles high schools, most of whom were Latino. Three-quarters of them owned a cell phone that they used regularly.

A study of Houston, Texas, high schoolers out earlier this summer found one in four teens had sent a naked photo of themselves through text message or email, and those kids were also much more likely to be having risky sex.

Jeff Temple, a psychologist and women's health researcher from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston who worked on the Houston study, found that girls in particular who'd sent naked photos were more likely to engage in risky sex, to have had multiple recent sex partners or to use alcohol and drugs before sex. "Sexting appears to be a reflection or an indication of actual sexual behavior," Temple said. "What they're doing in their offline lives is what they're doing in their online lives."

Eric Rice, a social network researcher from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who led the new study, agreed that this was the most important finding to take away from both studies. "That may be a no-brainer to some parents, but it may be alarming to others," he said.

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/17/us-sexting-again-linked-to-risky-sex-amo-idUSBRE88G0G220120917

 

More Than One in Four Teens Have "Sexted"

More than one-quarter of Texas teens have sent naked photos of themselves through text or email, according to the latest study on "sexting."

Researchers found 10th and 11th graders who sexted were more likely to have had sex, and girls who'd sent naked photos of themselves also had a higher chance of engaging in risky sex, including having multiple partners and using drugs and alcohol before sex.

In a survey of 948 teens from seven different Houston-area schools, 28 percent said they had sent a naked photo of themselves via text or email and 57 percent said they'd been asked to send one. Most teens, especially girls, said they had been at least "a little bit" bothered by a request to send a naked picture.

More teens who reported sexting had also had sex: 77 percent of girls and 82 percent of boys who'd sent a naked photo of themselves had started having sex, compared to 42 percent of girls and 45 percent of boys who'd never sexted.

Jeff Temple from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, who led the new study, found that it was impossible from the surveys to tell which came first, the sexting or the risky, in-person sexual behavior. But they add that asking teens about sexting might give pediatricians and parents a hint about their other sexual behaviors as well as help to start a conversation about safe sex.

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-teens-sexted-idUSBRE8611A320120702

Sexting Teens Don't Care About Legal Consequences

Twenty percent of high school students have used their cell phones to send a sexually explicit photo, and 25 percent have forwarded such an image, according to a study released recently by psychologists at the University of Utah. This is a lot higher than the 2.5 percent figure found by another recent sexting study. But the most surprising thing the new study uncovered was that the threat of legal action doesn't do anything to stop sexting, and may even be counterproductive.

The study, published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, looked at 606 high school students at a private high school in the Southwest. The students who said they were aware of possible legal repercussions for sexting — like child porn charges and jail time — were actually more likely to have sexted someone than those who weren't aware. Just over 35 percent of aware students had sent a sexual image, compared to 24 percent of those who weren't aware of the legal risks.

Lead study author Donald Strassberg says that just like with underage drinking or cheating on exams, the mere understanding that there could be consequences may not be enough — teenagers believe it won't happen to them. That doesn't explain why teenagers who know the legal risks would be more likely to sext, though. Strassberg says this could be a fluke — he's currently doing followup research. But, he says, it's also possible that some kids see sexting as attractive precisely because there's risk involved, because it's something "the culture around them sees as bad."

Whatever the case, Strassberg says, his research is evidence that the threat of legal action isn't the best way to keep kids from sexting. Rather, he is advocating for educational approaches to sexting.

Source: BuzzFeed
http://www.buzzfeed.com/annanorth/sexting-teens-dont-care-about-legal-consequences

Sexting Numbers Among Teens Lower Than Thought

Teen sexting is a real problem, but not the pervasive scourge some reports have suggested, according to the first detailed national study on youths who share sexual images on phones and the Internet.

Just 2.5% of kids ages 10 to 17 admit to creating or appearing in such photos or videos, and even fewer produce images that amount to pornography, says the study, published today in Pediatrics.

"Many of these are very benign pictures" — of kids who might strike a sexual pose, but who remain clothed, often wearing bathing suits or underwear, says lead author Kimberly Mitchell, a researcher at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.

Parents might worry about those photos, but should know that there's no epidemic of teens "unwittingly producing child pornography," co-author Janis Wolak says.

Researchers conducted phone interviews with 1,560 youths nationwide and asked about exchanges of "nude or nearly nude" images of minors in the past year. They found:

•1.8% created such images of themselves; just five kids (0.3%) said they appeared in someone else's photos; and six (0.4%) said they photographed someone else.

•1.3% said they appeared in or created images that showed naked breasts, genitals or bottoms.

•7% said that they have received such images.

"If their findings are true and the extent of this is less than previous studies have shown, it's a very good thing," says Bill Albert, chief program officer at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Source: USA Today
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/teen-ya/story/2011-12-04/Sexting-numbers-among-teens-lower-than-thought/51643910/1

Teen Sexting Common, Linked to Psychological Woes

A study of more than 23,000 high school students finds 13 percent have received a sext message and 10 percent have either forwarded, sent or posted sexually suggestive, explicit or nude photos or videos by cellphone or online.

The study was presented at the American Public Health Association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Sexting can include overtones of bullying and coercion, and teens who are involved were more likely to report being psychologically distressed, depressed or even suicidal, according to the 2010 survey of 24 (of 26) high schools in Boston's metro-west region.

Twice as many respondents who said they had sexted in the past year reported depressive symptoms, compared to teens who did not. Moreover, 13 percent of teen involved in sexting reported a suicide attempt during that period compared with 3 percent of non-sexting teens, according to the researchers at the Education Development Center in Newton, Mass.

That doesn't mean that sexting leads to depression or increases suicide risk. "It's a cross-sectional study -- it shows an association but not a causal relationship," explained lead researcher Shari Kessel Schneider.

However, she added, "It's important to know there's a link between sexting and psychological distress. It's something to be considered if you know of a youth who is involved in sexting."

Of the high-school students, 10 percent of boys and 11 percent of girls said they had sent one of these images in the past year, while 6 percent of males and 4 percent of females had had such an image sent of themselves.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/sexual-and-reproductive-health/articles/2011/11/02/teen-sexting-common-and-linked-to-psychological-woes

Four in Five College Students Sext

A recent survey from the University of Rhode Island has put some numbers on how widespread sexting is among College students. Seventy-eight percent of students in the survey say they've received sexually suggestive messages and 56% say they have received intimate images. Two thirds of the students said they sent salacious messages. Before we call a national epidemic of Weiner -itis, we should note that 73% of texts were sent to a romantic partner. Almost like a romantic old love-letter, but shorter and with more emoticons.

And, it seems, with more staying power. Almost a fifth of the people who received the racy messages then forwarded them onto somebody else. And 10% of all the explicit messages sent were relayed without permission from the original author. (Those statistics should be put on a label and stuck on cellphones everywhere.)

Source: Time
http://healthland.time.com/2011/07/25/how-many-college-kids-sext-four-out-of-five/

Focus on Sexting in New York Times

On Sunday, March 27, 2011, the New York Times published several articles on the topic of teen sexting which provide an up-to-date focus on the topic.

"A Girls' Nude Photo, and Altered Lives" describes the aftermath of a 14-year-old middle school girl whose sext to her boyfriend quickly goes viral.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sexting.html

"States Struggle With Minors' Sexting" addresses how states are working to define appropriate laws and consequences for teen sexting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sextinglaw.html

"What They're Saying About Sexting" provides quotes from teen surveys and gives a look into what teens have to say about sexting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sextingqanda.html

Source: New York Times