Sexting among Teenagers: Details from a National Study

Building on last week’s post, our Teen Health and Technology study finds that the vast majority of teens (93%) do not “sext”—the popular term for sharing sexually suggestive photos of oneself through web or mobile technology. Among the 7 percent of teens who reported sexting, teen sexters are more likely to be female and more likely to be older than teens who do not sext. These data suggest that sexting is not necessarily unhealthy behavior--instead, sexting may just be part of teen sexual development in today’s digital society. To learn more, check out this infographic: Sexting among Teens.

Source: Center for Innovative Public Health Research

[Note appended on June 6, 2017: The percentages in the small circle of the second block headed by "Reported modes of sexting..." do not sum to 100% because they reflect the percentage of the total survey respondents who reported a specific behavior (the total number of survey respondents is the denominator for each of the percentages). In other words, 5% of all teens reported sexting by text message, 2% of all teens did so online, 1% of all teens did so in person, and 0.2% did so by other modes.
These percentages sum closer to 7%, the percentage of all teens who reported sexting. However, they do not sum exactly to 7% because some teens who sexted reported doing so through multiple modes (for example, a person could sext through text message and also in person)

This infographic was written based on findings from: Ybarra, M.L., Mitchell, K.J. (2014). “Sexting” and its relation to sexual activity and sexual risk behavior in a national survey of adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Health. 55, 757-764. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.07.012. ]

Learn more about our research at Center for Innovative Public Health Research.

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Acknowledgments: Thank you to Emilie Chen for her contributions to this blog.