Survey: One Third of Youths Have Engaged in Sexting

If you think the sexting phenomenon is growing, you’re not imagining it. According to a new survey, almost one-third of youths admit they’ve engaged in sexting-related activities that involved either e-mailing a photo or video of themselves in the nude or being the recipient of such images.

Through a survey conducted by MTV and the Associated Press, they found out that of those who admitted to distributing suggestive images of themselves, about 61 percent report that they were pressured by someone to send the image. Girls were more likely to share a naked image of themselves than boys. and those who are already sexually active were much more likely to send an image than those who were not sexually active. Most of the respondents sent the image to a significant other or a person of romantic interest to them. But 29 percent said they shared naked images of themselves with someone they knew only online.

MTV is also launching a contest called " Redraw the line challenge" to address digital abuse and also to help educate people especially youths.

Through this survey, it shows that new media have also a negative side to it such as sending 'private pictures' to other people. I think that such a contest would be useful in educating the people on digital abuse.