There have been thousands of definitions and theorems about peer pressure amongst the youth. A new phenomenon that has developed with the youth in according to researchers at University of Melbourne is sexting.
Sexting, a term that refers to sending and receiving text messages or images with sexual content on a phone, is considered a problem that especially schools have an increasingly difficult time to deal with.
An Australian study, the first of its kind as far as we know, looked closer at origins of sexting and found that the trend is mainly driven by peer pressure.
Researchers at the University of Melbourne presented their results at the 2011 Australasian Sexual Health Conference in Canberra and noted that teenagers indirectly force each other to engage in sexting, which enables them to remain a member in a certain group of peers.
“The phenomenon has become a focus of much media reporting; however research regarding the issue is in its infancy, and the voice of young people is missing from this discussion and debate,” said Shelley Walker from the University of Melbourne.
At least according to the research group of 33 people between the ages of 15 and 20, “highly sexualized media” plays a big role in this trend, which creates pressure on teenagers simply because “highly sexualized” content. Both genders told scientists about the pressure girls experienced from boyfriends or strangers “to reciprocate on exchanging sexual images”. Young women said that there was a certain pressure to be involved in sexting simply because they have seen explicit images of people they know. Both males and females said they were shown pornographic images without having agreed to look at them.
The researchers did not offer a possible solution how to contain sexting, but noted that it would be important to maintain a “meaningful dialogue” to prevent unwanted consequences