Very few young people send nude pictures of themselves that would qualify as child pornography, finds one, while the other concluded that when teen sexting images do come to police attention, few youth are being arrested or treated like sex offenders.
In the first study, UNH researchers surveyed 1,560 internet users aged between 10 and 17 about their experiences with sexting - defined as appearing in, creating, or receiving sexual images or videos via cellphones or the internet.
Only one in 40 of those surveyed said they'd participated in sexting in the past year, and only one percent said they'd been involved with images that potentially violate child pornography laws - images that show 'naked breasts, genitals or bottoms'.
"Lots of people may be hearing about these cases discovered by schools and parents because they create a furor, but it still involves a very small minority of youth," says Kimberly Mitchell, research assistant professor of psychology at the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center.
In the second study, researchers discovered that in most sexting cases investigated by the police, no juvenile arrest occurred. There was an arrest in 36 percent of the cases where there were aggravating activities, such as using the images for blackmail or harasment. In cases without aggravating elements, the arrest rate was 18 percent.
The second study was based on a national sample of 675 sexting cases collected from a systematic survey of law enforcement agencies. The study found that the very few teens who were subjected to sex offender registration had generally committed other serious offenses such as sexual assault.
"Most law enforcement officials are handling these sexting cases in a thoughtful way and not treating teens like sex offenders and child pornographers," says lead author Janis Wolak, senior researcher at the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center.
Previous reports said as many as one in five young people — 20 percent — have participated in sexting. But some surveys included older teens and people in their early 20s. And some used definitions of sexting that included racy text messages without photos, or images “no more revealing than what someone might see at a beach,” authors of the new study said.
They focused only on pictures, and asked more detailed questions about the kinds of racy photos kids are sharing.
The researchers did a separate study on how police deal with teen sexting of photos. Contrary to some reports, that research suggests few kids are being prosecuted or forced to register as sex offenders for sexting. It estimates that nearly 4,000 teen sexting cases were reported to police nationwide in 2008 and 2009.
Slightly more than one-third of those cases resulted in arrests. About one-third of all cases involved teens and young adults; the adults were much more likely to be arrested.
The studies were released Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
The research shows that sexting can range from incidents that some teen health experts consider typical adolescent exploring — the 21st century version of sneaking a look at dad’s Playboy magazine, to malicious cases with serious consequences made possible by today’s technology.
For example, one case involved a 10-year-old boy who sent a cellphone picture of his genitals to an 11-year-old classmate “to gross her out.” The girl’s mother called police; the boy cried when questioned by police, who concluded he didn’t understand the magnitude of his actions and left the matter to his parents.
Another involved a 16-year-old girl who said she accidentally posted a nude photo of herself on a social networking site. A 16-year-old boy at her school found the photo and distributed it to 100 people when she refused his demand to send him more nude pictures. He was charged with a felony and was put on probation.
The results suggest that police generally aren’t overreacting to teen sexting, said Janis Wolak, lead author of the second study. Some cases that aren’t clearly criminal are still worrisome and warrant intervention by parents or others, she said.
In the first study, researchers questioned 1,560 kids nationwide by phone, with parents’ permission, between in August 2010 and January of this year. The second study is based on mailed questionnaires to nearly 3,000 police departments and follow-up phone interviews with investigating officers about sexting cases handled in 2008 and 2009.
The studies illustrate how sexting may include a wide range of teen behavior, and highlight an issue “about which we as a society have gotten pretty hysterical and probably blew out of proportion,” said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston.
Exploring sexuality is normal behavior for teens and taking pictures of themselves and others is one way “just to find out what it is like,” he said. “We’ve been doing that since somebody scribbled a picture of a nude woman on the side of a cave and the guys gathered around to check it out.”
Sexting is different only because it is happening “in an environment that the adult community doesn’t understand as well as kids,” Rich said.
Dr. Victor Strasburger, an adolescent medicine expert at the University of New Mexico, said parents, schools and law enforcement authorities “need to understand that teenagers are neurologically programmed to do dumb things.” Their brains aren’t mature enough to fully realize the consequences of their actions, including sexting, until early adulthood, he said.
Instead of prosecution, he said, there should be more emphasis on teaching teens to be responsible with new technology. Kids need to be told “that when you put things online and even when you send them via cellphone, they’re potentially there forever.”
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