Here ’s How Many Young People Are Seeing Unwanted Sexual Content Online

More young people have access to the Internet than ever before, and researchers are trying to understand what risks are involved. A new study published Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health, reports that one in five youths are seeing unwanted sexual material online—and one in nine are getting unwanted requests for sexual material from their peers or adults. Study author Sheri Madigan, a child and adolescent psychologist, says that many young clients have described their risky online behaviors to her. “Some teens I worked with set up meetings offline with strangers they had met online,” she says. “Other teens had shared naked images online and were being blackmailed into sending more photos, or they risked having their images posted and distributed online.” Madigan, the Canada Research Chair in the department of psychology at the University of Calgary and the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, wondered how common it was for young people to come across sexual content online or to be asked for it by other young people or adults. To help answer that question, Madigan and her co-authors pulled together data from all existing studies looking at unwanted online sexual exposure like pop-up pictures or videos, spam emails and website links or solicitation among young people under age 18. They found 31 studies that looked at unwanted online exposure, and nine studies that looked at online solicitation. They found that 20% of youn...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime Research Source Type: news