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ABSTRACT
A common risk among adolescents is sexual solicitation, in which an adolescent is asked to provide sexual information, engage in sexual talk, or in sexual activities. Although scholars increasingly address this topic from an intrapersonal perspective, there is little attention to factors of language use and message content. In two focus group studies, we investigated whether adolescent girls consider themselves capable of assessing whether an online stranger is an adult or a peer, the extent to which adolescent girls actually succeed in making this assessment, the strategies they apply to do so, and the content- and language-related cues focused on. Our findings suggest that most of the adolescent girls are confident in their ability to assess whether the stranger is a peer or an adult with possible sexual intentions. However, we also found that only 43% were able to correctly make this assessment. Most of the adolescents seem to apply the passive strategy of uncertainty reduction: They scan the profile page of the stranger, check contact information, and the profile picture. They may choose to apply the interactive strategy to find out more about the online stranger. Important content-related cues that alarm adolescent girls are: ignoring personal questions, showing an exaggerated amount of interest, acting as a friend, and being sexually oriented. Language cues mentioned related to word usage, abbreviations, sentence length, and tone.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Ellen Groenestein, M.Sc., is a researcher at the University of Twente (the Netherlands). Research fields are online risk behavior from children and influencing consumer behavior [email: [email protected]].
Niels Baas, M.Sc. is a researcher at the University of Twente (The Netherlands). Main research fields are children, the online world and online risk behavior (e.g., cyberbullying, grooming, and sexting) [email: [email protected]].
Alexander J. A. M. van Deursen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Media, Communication and Organization of the University of Twente in the Netherlands. His research focuses on digital inequality with specific attention to Internet skills. He consults public agencies on how to improve their service delivery by accounting for differences in Internet use [email: [email protected]].
Menno D. T. de Jong is a full professor of Communication Science at the University of Twente (The Netherlands). His main research interests include technical communication (usability, user experience, and the appropriation of technology) and organizational communication [email: [email protected]].