Sexting: adolescents’ perceptions of the applications used for, motives for, and consequences of sexting

ABSTRACT

This study explores adolescents’ perceptions of applications used for sexting, the motives for engaging in sexting, and the consequences they relate to sexting behavior. We conducted 11 same-sex focus groups among 57 adolescents (66.67% females; n = 38) between 15 and 18 years old in Flanders, Belgium. The analysis revealed that sexting mostly occurs through smartphone applications, such as Snapchat, which are perceived to be a more intimate form of communication than other digital applications, such as social networking sites. Both female and male respondents observed that girls might sometimes feel pressured to engage in sexting. They did so mostly out of fear that otherwise they would lose their boyfriends. Female and male respondents mentioned three main ways in which sexting photographs could be abused: (1) they could be used to coerce or to blackmail the victim, (2) they could be distributed out of revenge after the breakup of a romantic relationship, or (3) they could be forwarded or shown to peers in order to boast about having received the digital photograph. Anecdotes, which illustrate our findings, are included in the results. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexting
• sexually explicit photographs
• adolescents
• teen dating
• qualitative research
• social media
• snapchat

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments which improved this article. The study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, writing of the report and the decision to submit the article for publication were the sole responsibility of the authors and were in no way influenced by the funding institutions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work of Joris Van Ouytsel was supported by the Research Fund of the University of Antwerp, the fellowship of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) (FWO-Aspirant), and the stipend ‘Omkadering Jonge Onderzoekers’ (OJO) awarded by the University of Antwerp Doctoral School for training related to data analysis of this study. Ellen Van Gool’s work is supported by the Research Fund of the University of Antwerp.