Sexting can be the source of fun for some people but most of the time when you’re a parent a source of worries. And in the right circumstances it can lead to a moral panic. Through this article I found this Australian research that sheds a different light on the trend of sexting and young people.
“In the meantime, recent research elsewhere suggests that when it comes to sexting, the crucial issue for young people is consent rather than what the images show. And even terminology can be problematic.
Kath Albury co-authored a study on young people and sexting in Australia. She says teens there usually don’t use the word ‘sexting,’ which they see as an adult term, preferring ‘pictures’ or ‘selfies.’ (University of New South Wales)
A recently published Australian study found that, for the 16 and 17 year olds in its focus groups, the word sexting “did not adequately reflect young people’s everyday practices and experiences of creating and sharing digital images.”
The key findings of the report mentioned in this article:
- While focus group participants were familiar with the practice of sending naked or semi-naked pictures, the term sexting was understood as an adult or media-generated concept that did not adequately respect young people’s everyday practices and experiences of creating and sharing digital images.
- Young people observed that gendered double-standards were applied to discussions of sexting, and digital self-representation in general. For example one group of young women were particularly offended that their self-portraits or selves were viewed by both peers and adults as ‘provocative’ while young men’s naked or semi-naked pictures were understood as ‘jokes’.
- Sample media campaigns and public education materials viewed by focus groups were rejected by some participants for failing to acknowledge young women’s capacity for consensual production and exchange of images. These participants also felt that current sexting education fails to emphasise young people’s responsibility to not share images without consent.
- Both young people and adult stakeholders agreed that current legal frameworks relating to sexting (particularly those that conflate sexting with child pornography) are not widely understood by either young people or adults, and that this lack of education and awareness places young people at risk of unreasonable criminal charges.