NEW YORK: More than a quarter of American teenagers sent nude photos of themselves electronically, and those who engaged in ‘sexting’ were almost twice as likely as their peers to have had sex, researchers found.
About half of almost 1,000 students ages 14 to 19 from seven public high schools in Texas said they had been asked to send a naked photo electronically, according to a study published today in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Another third reported asking someone else to send them a nude picture.
The study found the 28 percent of teens who exchanged nude messages were more likely to have sex. Pediatricians and other adults should ask about sexual messaging to screen for other sexual behavior, said Jeff Temple, a researcher from University of Texas Medical Branch Health in Galveston and the study’s lead author.
“These messages are really important to adolescents,” said Megan Moreno, a University of Wisconsin adolescent medical specialist whose editorial about the connection between online and offline behavior accompanies the study. “I think we’ll want to think about how do we provide education about it and how do we provide prevention.”
More boys asked for a ‘sext,’ though the same percentage of boys and girls had sent one, according to the study.
Of girls who had sent a nude message, more than 77 percent reported having had sex. For those who had never sent a naked photo, 42 percent said they had had sex. For boys, those numbers were 82% compared with 45%. (Bloomberg/tw)
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