Original articleSexting, Substance Use, and Sexual Risk Behavior in Young Adults
Section snippets
Methods
A brief survey was administered to students enrolled in undergraduate psychology classes at a large public university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. All surveys were completed anonymously online via a password-protected secure survey system. Participants received course credit for participation. The system was set up to award credit automatically while masking participant identities from the researchers. A total of 800 participants completed the survey. Data were collected
Results
Sample demographic information is listed in Table 1. The sample largely consisted of female and white participants. Although each college class was represented, most participants were in their freshmen or sophomore year. The overrepresentation of students in their first 2 years of college is likely because the majority of participants were recruited from Introductory Psychology, a course typically taken early in the college career.
Discussion
Much of the literature on sexting has focused on the legal and social ramifications of this behavior [9], [11], [12]. In contrast to sexting among minors, sexting in young adults does not carry the same legal risks of possessing explicit or provocative photographs of underage individuals (i.e., potentially child pornography), but our results suggest it is associated with health-jeopardizing behaviors, including substance use, sex with multiple partners, unprotected sex, and STIs. In this study,
Acknowledgments
This project was supported, in part, by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant R34 MH073409 (Eric G. Benotsch, principal investigator). NIMH provided funding for research that led to the current project but did not influence the information in this manuscript. All four authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript. No one was paid specifically to write it.
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