Another Study Finds Teens Still Sexting

*The following is excerpted from an online article from U.S. News & World Report.

A large number of American teens continue to send and receive sexual images on their cellphones -- a practice dubbed sexting, according to a new study.

Researchers surveyed more than 1,100 undergraduate college students about their experiences with sexting in high school. Nearly 20 percent said they had sent a nude photo of themselves to another person via cellphone, and 38 percent had received such a photo, according to the survey.

Of those who received a sext message, nearly one in five forwarded the photo to another person, according to the University of Utah study published recently in the journal Computers in Human Behavior.

The findings show that sexting is occurring among a large number of high school students across the country, in spite of warnings about the dangers.

Both women and men sext, but there are significant differences between them. Equal numbers of women and men had sent a sext, but many more men (47 percent) than women (32 percent) had received a sext. This may be because men are much more likely than women to forward a sext -- 24 versus 13 percent respectively, the researchers said.

Boyfriends or girlfriends were the recipients of 83 percent of sexts sent by women and 55 percent of those sent by men. People other than a boyfriend or girlfriend were the recipients of 31 percent of sexts sent by men and 15 percent of those sent by women, the study found.

Source: U.S. News & World Report
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/articles/2014/10/16/teens-still-sending-naked-pictures-via-cellphone