Sexting On the College Campus: What? So What? Now What?

For those coming of age during the digital age, text messaging is used in romantic relationships not only to flirt and court, but now also for sexual exploration, titillation and invitation in the form of sexting. Sexting, a 2009 Time Magazine “top ten buzzword” (Stephey, 2009), is a recently coined term used to describe the act of sending, receiving or forwarding nude, semi-nude photos, videos and/or sexually explicit messages via cell phones (Diliberto & Mattey, 2009; Jaishankar, 2009). Weiss and Samenow (2010) conclude, “Sexting has challenged society's definitions of normal adolescent behavior, problematic sexual behaviors, and a felony sex crime.” This session will present findings from a survey of 1652 undergraduates and explore the nature and prevalence of sexting among college students. This study is the largest and most comprehensive assessment to date of sexting on the college campus. Results reveal that 65% of those surveyed have sent sexually suggestive texts or photos to a current or potential partner and 69% have received them. Approximately 31% shared these private communications with a third-party. Almost half (46%) had only positive perceptions of those sending nude photos. Females were significantly more likely to feel pressured to send sext messages. The majority of respondents believed that there were potential negative consequences to participating in sexting. After sharing results from their research study, the presenters will suggest implications of the findings for health educators and lead participants in a discussion of strategies to address these implications.