Association between exposure to sexually explicit internet media and dating violence among adolescents

Background. Adolescent dating violence (DV) is a serious public health problem. Research has shown that adolescents are at higher risk of DV victimization than any other age group. Little is known about the role of Internet use, particularly with sexually explicit media sites, with regard to DV perpetration. Method. Data were collected from a national probability sample (n = 591) of adolescents (14-17 years) with home Internet access. Participants were recruited using list-assisted random-digit-dial sampling methods. Online questionnaires were used to assess DV and gender harassment (GH) and self-reported Internet use. Pearson's r correlation was used to determine any significant associations. Results. Half of adolescents reported perpetrating at least one DV tactic; 51% psychological DV and 15% physical DV. Approximately 65% also reported GH perpetration. 96% reported using the Internet within the last month and of those, adolescents reported visiting adult sites (16%), shock sites (15%), sex newsgroup sites (30%), and/or downloading nude photos (17%) or X-rated videos (22%). Visiting an adult site was significantly associated with GH perpetration, while visiting a shock site or sex newsgroup site was significantly associated with psychological and physical DV perpetration. A composite score of site visits was imputed and was also significantly associated with GH and physical DV perpetration. Conclusions. This study shows that adolescents report using the Internet at high rates and that visiting certain sexually explicit sites is associated with perpetration of DV and GH. Further research should explore the content of these sexually explicit pages to inform prevention approaches.