Association of sexting and physical dating violence in a regional census of high school students

Background/Purpose: This study examines the relationship between sexting and physical dating violence victimization in teen heterosexual dating relationships.

Methods: In Fall 2010, 23,187 students completed surveys in 24 high schools in MetroWest Boston. These analyses included youth who identified as heterosexual (90.7%) and who had dated in the past 12 months (76.2%) for a sample of 16,250. Participants were asked if they had sent, forwarded, or posted a nude, sexually suggestive or explicit photo or video of someone they know using the Internet, cell phone, or other electronic devices (senders) or if someone had sent an image of them (subjects) in the last 12 months. Youth were also asked about physical dating violence victimization during this period. Bivariate and regression analyses examined the association between sexting and dating violence.

Findings: 11.3% of youth sent a sext message, and 4.9% were the subjects of a sext; reports were similar for males and females. About 7% of all youth reported physical dating violence. Sexting and dating violence were highest among older youth. Senders of sext messages were three times more likely to report being a victim of physical dating violence than non-senders (19.0% vs. 5.9%), as were sexting subjects compared with non-subjects (21.8% vs. 6.6%). These relationships remained statistically significant after adjusting for gender, age, and frequency of text messaging.

Conclusions: Sexting involvement is associated with physical dating violence victimization. This study highlights a need to address sexting in discussions of teen dating relationships.