Study: Half of Kids Report Digital Abuse
A study conducted by the Associated Press and MTV found that 50% of 14 to 24 year-olds have experienced some type of digital abuse. The study, released on Thursday, also found that 30% had either sent or received nude photos on their cell phones or online. But when you break down the numbers, 10% actually sent such messages, which is in line with a previous study done by Cox Communications that found that 9% had sent a "sext."
The AP/MTV study sampled 1,247 youths in what the authors call an "online panel that is representative of the entire U.S. population." Respondents were recruited from KnowledgePanel. Details about the study and a campaign to empower youth to stop digital abuse are expected to be available at ATHINLINE.org.
Females are slightly more likely to share a naked photo of themselves (13%) than males (9%) while youth who are sexually active are more than twice as likely to send such photos (17% vs. 8%). Perhaps more disturbing is the finding that 17% report having passed the image to someone else and just over 9% have distributed the images to more than one person. Twenty-nine percent of respondents who shared a naked photo of themselves report that they shared the image with someone who they never met in person and only knew online. That represents about 3% of the total sample.