Recently a research was conducted among the teens and out of the participants about one-fourth admitted to have sent a sext and 76.2% teens admitted to have had sexual intercourse even if they hadn’t sent any sext on being asked, and finally only 38.2% of teens told that they weren’t asked to send any sext.
Paediatricians who were involved in studying the conducted research as well as other health care providers believe that habit of sexting can be used in knowing the sexual behaviour of the teenagers. Simply asking the teenage kids about their sexting habits get the clear idea of how engaging the teens are in their sexual behaviour which can even lead to risky extremes.
The study also found that the practice of sending sexually explicit pictures electronically is on the rise and various studies including this has marked the rise from 1 to 31 percent range.
In the current research some 948 teen out of which 55.9% were female enrolled at 7 different public high schools of Texas and were within the age of 14 to 19 years, were asked if they ever shared their naked pictures with others through MMS or other electronic media and what impact did the request have on them.
It was found that about one fourth of the teens responded to such requests by sending sexts. And girls were found to be asked more being 68.4% whereas boys were asked lesser being 42.1 percent. The early teens responded more positively than the later ones as the teens in the age group of 16 and 17 were found more likely to have propositioned to send the sext and those who were 18 or above declined such requests directly.
The research also revealed that the likelihood of asking somebody for a sext is two times more than girls and girls get nine times more bothered when they are asked to send a sext compared to boys.
As a whole the research showed that 93% of girls and 90% of boys among the participants had started dating out of which 51.1% of girls and 54.6% of boys have undergone sexual intercourse. Boys were found to have changed their sex partners more than the girls. Among the sexually active girls about 77% of girls were found to have sent a sext where as 42% had not sent sext yet. Again among the sexually active boys 81% were found to have sent sext where as 45.4% hadn’t sent any sext yet.
Though the researchers couldn’t conclude whether sexting is harmful or should be banned for minors nor could they relate their sexually active behaviour with sexting completely, yet the sexting was found potentially dangerous if anyone misuses it for harassment, according to Dr. Jeff R. Temple, a University of Texas Medical Branch based psychologist & assistant professor.
Parents should keep a check on their kids to have them out of any possible harassment or trauma as a result of their involvement in sexting.
