Teens Exposing Themselves in Cyberspace (NYTimes)

January 7, 2009, 11:08 am

NYTimes

Teens Exposing Themselves in Cyberspace

Today's PsychCentral.com highlights a recent study that found one in five teens are using cell phones and online technology to send sexually explicit pictures of themselves to others. The research is from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com. (Click here to read the original report.)

PsychCentral founder John Grohol, an expert in online psychology issues, says that the "online disinhibition effect," the phenomenon that prompts people to say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn't ordinarily say or do in the real world, is strongly at work here. He notes that nearly one quarter of teens say that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive. According to Dr. Grohol:

The scary part is that most respondents agreed that engaging in this sort of behavior "can have serious negative consequences" but do it anyway. Although respondents realize how easy it is to save these images and share them (about 40 percent of respondents said they did so) with one's friends or post them online (perhaps long after they've broken up), it doesn't appear to be stopping anyone. While an old love note passed around might cause embarrassment, a sexually explicit image passed around could cause much more trouble than mere embarrassment if it surfaces years later as one is applying to graduate school or for their first job.

Yesterday's Vital Signs column highlighted an interesting study about teen online behavior, in which a researcher, "Dr. Meg," alerted kids on MySpace.com about potentially embarrassing content they had posted on their personal pages. The warnings worked, and many kids changed their postings.

But parents can't count on Dr. Meg to keep their teens in check. PsychCentral offers some commonsense suggestions to teens before they hit the send button, such as reminding them that nothing "will truly go away" once it's in cyberspace.