Abstract
The current review frames an understanding of ‘sexting’ among adolescents within the dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking. Adolescent sexting has been growing in popularity in recent years. When adolescents share sexual images, they face the possibility of serious consequences in the United States, such as being added to the sex offender registry. The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking suggests teenagers engage in risky behavior due to the under development of impulse control and a peak in reward sensitivity. It is argued that the possible legal consequences of teenage sexting do not fit the developmental level of teenagers.
The exchange of sexually explicit images using cell phones, also known as ‘sexting’, has been increasing (Judge, 2012). Adults and adolescents engage in sexting (Lievens, 2014); however, when minors share explicit images of themselves, they could face harsher penalties than adults, such as they could be charged with distributing child pornography. In the United States, this may result in the adolescent being placed on a sex offender registry (McLaughlin, 2010) or facing additional legal penalties. In addition, adolescent sexting has shown to be related to unprotected sex and substance use (Rice et al., 2012; Temple et al., 2012). Taken together, these potential negative consequences suggest sexting is a high-risk behavior (Temple et al., 2012).
Much of the current research on adolescent sexting focuses on reacting to the problem and managing it in such a way that will reduce future problems with the sharing of photos, instead of understanding the phenomenon and the risks associated with it (Lee et al., 2013). Additionally, there has been little research evaluating the social, legal, and developmental influences that have led to the increased occurrence of sexting (Judge, 2012). The reality may be that not all adolescents are mature enough to understand the full weight of their behavior. Instead, sharing explicit photos may be impulsive and performed by adolescents whose executive function and decision-making processes are not yet fully developed. With this in mind, adolescents should be held responsible for their actions in a way consistent with their level of maturity (Zimring, 2004).
The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking posits the idea that risk-taking results from both logical reasoning and psychosocial factors (Steinberg, 2007). Psychosocial factors moderate risk-taking through impulse control, emotional regulation, resistance to peer influence, and delay of gratification. Cognitive functioning continues to mature into adulthood, and this psychosocial immaturity may work to undermine the decision-making process with regard to risky behavior (Steinberg, 2004). This model proposes impulsive and risky behaviors may occur as a result of adolescents having underdeveloped executive functioning skills and fully developed socio-emotional systems. This development pattern creates a situation in which some adolescent behavior can be governed more by emotion than reasoning because the executive functioning is not yet developed enough to handle the emotions (Steinberg, 2007). This article aims to examine sexting within the context of the dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking to explore why adolescents may be especially at risk for engaging in sexting behavior.
Technology and Sexting
Researchers have defined sexting many ways. Some consider sexting to be the digital recording of naked or semi-naked sexually suggestive or explicit images and their distribution by email, cell phones, or the Internet through social media sites (Lee et al., 2013). Others define sexting as the sending or receiving of all sexually explicit material using only cell phones (Judge, 2012; Rice et al., 2012). The inconsistencies and broadness of the definitions have led to confusion regarding the prevalence of adolescent sexting. These inconsistencies also may create difficulties in finding the effect sexting has on adolescents, what potential risks may be associated with the behavior, and the possible scenarios and motivations that may encompass the behavior (Judge, 2012). Based on previous research, the current review considers sexting to be the exchange of nude photos of adolescents via cell phones, messaging, or other photo-sharing applications.
Recent technological advances, such as smartphones, have expanded the availability and ease of sending materials while simultaneously weakening restrictions – such as having to go to the store to develop film – to accessing these materials (Rice et al., 2012). Additionally, there has been a very large growth in Internet use (Internet World Stats, 2012), which allows material to be spread more easily and quickly, and with very little effort (Rice et al., 2012). Smartphones are capable of acting as a camera and allow for photos to be easily shared through text messaging, various apps, or the Internet.
The rates of adolescents admitting to sending or posting nude images range from 1 percent for adolescents between the ages of 10 and 17 (Mitchell et al., 2012) to 20 percent for adolescents aged 13–19 (Judge, 2012). Furthermore, when examining both sending and receiving of sexts, 65.5 percent of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 19 reported sexting (McLaughlin, 2010). The discrepancy between sending and receiving sexts may suggest some images are sent to more than one individual (Lee et al., 2013). This dissemination is problematic due to the possible permanence of images in cyberspace and the harm it may cause to the person in the photo (Judge, 2012; Korenis and Billick, 2014; Rice et al., 2012)
When an adolescent’s explicit photo is disseminated among peers without consent, it may lead to depression (Judge, 2012), anxiety disorders, harassment, and cyberbullying (Korenis and Billick, 2014). Additionally, consequences of adolescent sexting may involve shame, guilt, and incarceration (Ahern and Mechling, 2013), which may play a role in adolescents attempting, or being successful in, committing suicide, such as in the case of 13-year-old Hope Witsell. After Hope Witsell’s ex-boyfriend shared a topless photo of Hope with their classmates, she became a victim of severe bullying and shaming, which ultimately resulted in Hope taking her own life (Inbar, 2009).
Sexting as Risk-Taking Behavior
There are many reasons why adolescents engage in sexting. Sexting can be used to gain attention from a potential partner (Van Ouytsel et al., 2014), flirt, or show affection, intimacy, or trust between the sender and receiver (Albury and Crawford, 2012; Lenhart, 2009; Ringrose et al., 2013; Wolak et al., 2012). Sexting may also be used as a joke, a dare, bonding ritual (Albury and Crawford, 2012), or for excitement (Lee et al., 2013).
An examination of elements that may increase the likelihood of an adolescent sending nude photographs revealed 56 percent of teenagers who engaged in sexting did not consider it to be illegal; thus, they believed that they were doing nothing to deserve legal consequences (McLaughlin, 2010). Additionally, it was found that adolescents who had friends who had sexted were 17 times more likely to have sexted themselves (Rice et al., 2012). Pressure from peers plays a significant role in sexting; it has been reported 61 percent of adolescents who sent a sext were pressured to do so at least once (Klettke et al., 2014) by boyfriends, girlfriends, sexual interests, or friends. When asked about the reason for sending the photos, 51 percent of girls who sexted named pressure from a boy as the main reason for sending the image, whereas only 18 percent of boys reported pressure from girls as the reason for sending the photo (Rice et al., 2012). Overall, these studies indicate peer influence is an important factor in adolescent sexting.
Adolescents often look to peer groups as guidance for behavior (Maroney, 2009). When peers are present, it can create an emotionally and socially rewarding situation, and preference for immediate reward may be strengthened (O’Brien et al., 2011). With regard to sexting, young people have shown to be influenced more by anticipated social pressure than their own evaluations of the possible negative consequences (Walrave et al., 2014). Many adolescents, especially girls, are likely to be subject to different forms of social pressure to produce these images (Sacco et al., 2010), which increases the likelihood these individuals will make the decision to send an explicit image without considering long-term consequences.
Research has found that adolescents who are particularly bad at dealing with emotional experiences may be more likely to engage in risky behaviors (Steinberg, 2007). Sexting can be considered an emotionally driven behavior. When an adolescent is not in a high state of emotional arousal, he or she may understand the possible negative consequences of sexting, but, when emotions are high, this understanding is overridden and the adolescent engages in the behavior anyway. The sending, therefore, is many times impulsive in nature and done without the sender understanding possible ramifications (Giedd, 2010).
Beyond nonconsensual photo-sharing, there may be very serious consequences that follow when a minor sends a nude photograph to another. Adolescents may face criminal charges if caught taking, possessing, or sending these photos, even if the photo was willingly shared between two people in a relationship. Under US federal law, at least two-thirds of cases brought to police meet the definition of child pornography (Wolak et al., 2012), and there have been a number of cases where a minor was added to a sex offender registry for sexting a significant other (Brady, 2011; Feyerick and Steffen, 2009).
Over-criminalization of sexting for young people may have created the idea that sexting is exciting and fun. Some cases involving adolescent sexting are highly publicized, and this publicity increases the prevalence of adolescent sexting, which in turn increases the prevalence of problems created from sexting, such as the image being used to cyberbully and harass (Rice et al., 2012). The excitement created by over-criminalization may frame sexting as a desirable activity for individuals who seek these types of risky behaviors (Lee et al., 2013). When these photos are sent, some are sent in an experimental and fun nature but quickly shift to an aggravated one, especially when considering the highly emotional and short-term length of many adolescent relationships, the increase in sexual energy after puberty, and neurodevelopment influences (Judge, 2012).
Consequences brought about by sexting
Child pornography
When adolescents engage in sexting behavior, they often do not consider or understand risks involved. For example, an unintended consequence of sharing nude photographs among adolescents is that they may be unknowingly contributing to online child pornography, thus making these minors liable for creating and distributing child pornography. Child pornography is a form of child abuse that continues to harm the victim throughout the time of distribution, which may be unending when these photos reach the Internet. When an image is circulated against one’s will, it can cause similar psychological harm to those who are victims of child pornography, especially when images are put onto the Internet where they are almost impossible to remove (Calvert, 2009). Being a victim of child pornography may cause adolescents to suffer from long-standing traumatic effects, partly due to the permanence and possible wide distribution associated with the Internet (Judge, 2012). Additionally, being the victim of child pornography has been shown to harm the victim by interfering with the child’s ability to form healthy attachments as an adult (McLaughlin, 2010).
Even though adolescent sexting may have negative impacts on adolescents, all adolescent sexting is not equal. Some sexting cases create much more harm than others, but current laws do not always distinguish between differences in types and situations of sexting. Teenagers caught in sexting situations in the United States have faced a plethora of criminal charges, ranging from disorderly conduct to sexual abuse of children or criminal use of a communication device (Lenhart, 2009). Despite the variation in penalties, research has identified two main types of adolescent incidents involving explicit photos, aggravated and experimental (Wolak and Finkelhor, 2011; see Wolak et al., 2012, for example cases by typology). Aggravated incidents involve criminal or abusive aspects (Judge, 2012), such as having the photos taken without the knowledge or consent of the person, or having them distributed widely without consent. Experimental incidents are cases in which explicit photos are shared willingly with another person of similar age and not widely distributed. Examples of instances of experimental incidents might include sexting in a romantic relationship involving two minors, attention seeking purposes, or even the youth’s own sexual expression. The current laws in the United States fail to differentiate between the two types of sexting incidents. There is a need for laws to distinguish between voluntary and consensually shared nude photos taken by the individual in the photo, and photos non-consensually obtained or wrongfully distributed (McLaughlin, 2010). Additionally, adolescent sex offenders should be separated and treated on an individual basis instead of being grouped together and treated similarly (DiCataldo, 2009).
Laws regarding child pornography were intended to protect children from adult sex offenders, but are sometimes being used for punishing experimenting adolescents who do not show a history of (what the law considers to be) sexually deviant behavior (DiCataldo, 2009). It has been found that 35 of the states have sexual offenses on their lists of offenses eligible for a waiver into being charged as an adult and, in many states, adolescents have been tried as adults and convicted for various sex crimes (DiCataldo, 2009). In these cases, legal age of consent sometimes acts as a ‘magical line’ which could determine whether the situation is legal or illegal (DiCataldo, 2009). Once a juvenile is charged as an adult for a sex crime, it may lead to jail time, and most states within the United States require registration on the state’s sex offender registry (McLaughlin, 2010), which is a statewide database which can be accessed by the public (Tewksbury and Lees, 2006). Individuals on the registry have been shown to have difficulties with threats, harassment, loss of jobs, loss of homes, along with feelings of stress, isolation, and shame (Levenson and Cotter, 2005).
Adolescents identified as sexual offenders are charged with offenses ranging from violent crimes to the crime of sending an explicit image to a significant other, and in some states, the registry does not specify the crime committed (DiCataldo, 2009), or the information listed is incorrect (Levenson and Cotter, 2005). Once charged, these adolescents may face harsh punishments, even though very few will continue with any deviant sexual behavior into adulthood (DiCataldo, 2009). If the impulsive decisions of adolescents were in part caused by underdeveloped executive functioning failing to control the socio-emotional system, it is likely that, with time, adolescents will have the ability to curb impulsive behavior.
The juvenile system was created based on the notion that minors need protection from the consequences of their immature decision-making. Legal policies designed to handle minors are based on the belief that adolescent choices and behaviors are affected by differences in their reasoning and understanding, and yet, despite this understanding, there are many cases in which minors are charged as adults. These increased charges counter the idea of a juvenile system because this system was created so juveniles were not held to the same standards as adults (Scott and Steinberg, 2009). Additionally, in some states, once a minor has been tried as an adult, all subsequent offenses must also be tried in criminal court (Scott and Steinberg, 2009), regardless of their status as a juvenile.
In 2005, the American Psychological Association (APA) published a brief concerning the execution of adolescents who killed at the age of 17 or younger (Roper v. Simmons, 2005). The APA asserted adolescents are not mature enough in their ability to make decisions which leads to them being less able to consider alternative courses of action. Due to their inability to take other courses of actions into account, they concluded that adolescents should not be allowed to be executed, even for the crime of murder (DiCataldo, 2009). The idea adolescents should not be held accountable to the same extent as adults for murder could apply to other crimes as well. The immature development of adolescents includes a decreased likelihood of taking the perspectives of others into account, an increase in vulnerability to peer pressure, a higher likelihood of taking high risks, and having an inability to inhibit impulses (DiCataldo, 2009). If adolescents are not mature enough to understand decision-making involved in murder, they may also not be fully capable of understanding implications and possible outcomes of sexting. Additionally, if adolescents should not be held to the same standards as adults for something as serious as murder, this idea should follow to a lesser crime of sharing explicit photos.
Approximately 36 percent of sexting cases involving only underage individuals reported to authorities result in arrests. Of these cases, only 5 percent lead to the youth being placed on the sex offender registry in the United States (Wolak et al., 2012). Although this may not lead to a large number of cases, even the mere threat of being placed on the sex offender registry can have serious consequences. For example, one teenager committed suicide after being threatened with being placed on the registry (Frazier, 2017). Furthermore, an examination of cases tried in the criminal justice system revealed 33 percent of cases involved no malicious elements or sharing of photos without ‘consent’ of the original sender of the photo. Instead, these cases were all in the form of sexual and romantic attention seeking from the adolescents involved (Wolak et al., 2012).
Trying juveniles through the juvenile system, as opposed to the adult legal system, has major advantages. For example, juvenile correctional institutions are more likely to offer education and therapy, while adult facilities create an increased likelihood of a person socializing with other criminals and subsequently becoming a victim of violence (Bishop et al., 1996). With this in mind, developing adolescents, whose executive functioning are not fully developed, would be better served by not facing strict punishment for an impulsive decision. Instead of receiving a potentially long-term punishment, adolescents could be educated and rehabilitated and given a better chance to become functioning members of society.
Adolescent Development and Risk-Taking
Across cultures and throughout history, adolescence has been associated with increased risky behavior (Arnett, 1992; Blum and Nelson-Mmari, 2004; Kloep et al., 2009). This increase in risky behavior is demonstrated via statistics on the increase in car accidents, binge drinking, crime, and a failure to use contraceptives during adolescence (Steinberg, 2007). These behaviors are considered risky because of consequences that may result, such as injury, death, or unplanned pregnancy. Additionally, researchers often define risky behavior as an action entailing some chance of loss (Beyth-Marom et al., 1993). Risk-taking is an important developmental process for adolescents because it teaches coping mechanisms, independence, and individual responsibility (Coleman and Hendry, 1999). Through maturation, most adolescents outgrow inclinations toward risk-taking and the idea of invulnerability; however, taking responsibility for their actions during this time is part of this maturation process (Zimring, 2004).
Risky behaviors tend to co-occur and correlate with one another, and all adolescents are at risk for negative outcomes during development (Hair et al., 2009) as risky behaviors occur across all socioeconomic statuses (Racz et al., 2011). Young people are biologically prone to risk-taking and poor decision-making well into their 20s (Bessant, 2008), and the Internet is helping to create new outlets for different types of risky behavior (Liau et al., 2005).
Adolescents many times underestimate, or fail to recognize altogether, the legal and psychological consequences that may result from sharing sexually explicit photos. Sharing explicit images may lead to gossip and name calling of the person in the photo or to possible legal ramifications (Ringrose et al., 2013). The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking helps to explain the relationship between emotional situations and impulsive, risky actions. If an adolescent’s executive functioning is not fully developed, but the socio-emotional system is, it may lead to the adolescent allowing his or her emotions to govern behavior.
Dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking
Some changes occurring during adolescence are often associated with an increase in risk-taking behaviors, impulsivity, and limited judgment (Korenis and Billick, 2014). Risky behaviors may lead to negative consequences for the adolescents, which may be legal, physical, or psychological in nature (Eaton et al., 2006). One explanation used to describe these changes in behavior is a model that suggests when adolescents respond to emotional stimuli during this period, some aspects of sensitivity to rewards are peaking (Urosevic et al., 2012), while the executive functioning used to moderate the behavior is not yet fully matured (Steinberg, 2010). This model, also known as the dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking (Steinberg, 2007, 2008, 2010), may be used to explain adolescent sexting as adolescent sexting is considered risky behavior.
Interventions for risky behavior have been designed with the idea that altering knowledge, beliefs, or attitudes about risky behavior works to change the behavior, but when these interventions are applied, they have shown negligible results (Steinberg, 2004). Supplying adolescents with information about risky behavior may help improve thinking about the behavior, but does not work to actually reduce the actual behavior (Steinberg, 2007). For example, D’Amico and Fromme (2002) created and tested a program to decrease risk-taking in adolescents using education, and found that risky behaviors only decreased for a short time following intervention. The intervention focused on teaching adolescents about harms of risky behaviors and was compared to a control group. Changes in behavior were short-lived; 6 months after the intervention, the adolescents’ risky behaviors were back to where they were before the intervention. In recent years, a dual systems model of risk-taking has arisen to examine the processing of risky behaviors by adolescence, and to address issues in other models (Steinberg, 2004). This model stems from the notion that risk-taking comes from both logical reasoning and psychosocial factors such that psychosocial immaturity may work to undermine good decision-making (Steinberg, 2007).
The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking posits that risk-taking behavior during adolescence results partly from the imbalance between the executive and socio-emotional cognitive systems present during the development of the two systems (Lambert et al., 2014). The executive system represents a top-down process that controls cognitive processes, which allow individuals to control their thoughts, actions, and emotion-based urges (Ellingson et al., 2013; Engle, 2002). The socio-emotional system is an emotionally based bottom-up process characterized by urges for rewarding stimuli (Ellingson et al., 2013). This system responds to emotion, novelty, and reward stimuli (Casey et al., 2008; Steinberg et al., 2009). The executive system works to regulate the socio-emotional system by controlling, interpreting, and utilizing information received from the socio-emotional system and, in turn, overrides or ‘moderates’ the influence of that system (Lambert et al., 2014). During development, the socio-emotional system reaches maturity before the executive system, which creates difficulties in the ability of the executive system to control the socio-emotional system.
The interaction between these systems during development has been used to explain, at least in part, many decision-making contexts. These contexts include drug use, social-decision processing, moral judgments, and the assessment of alternative rewards and costs (Chambers et al., 2003; Steinberg, 2007). More specifically, the dual systems model has been used to explain many different risky adolescent behaviors, including substance use (Quinn and Harden, 2013), suicidal ideation (Ortin et al., 2012), emotionality (Centifanti and Modecki, 2013), and risky driving (Lambert et al., 2014). The socio-emotional network has been shown to be associated with the selection of risky, but potentially rewarding, choices instead of more conservative choices (Ernst et al., 2005), and many times, these are situations that create immediate rewards, which are especially emotionally arousing for adolescents (Steinberg, 2007). When examining how rewards are assessed, studies have indicated greater reward salience for adolescents than for adults in different decision-making tasks. This finding may suggest that in potentially risky situations, adolescents may be more sensitive to possible rewards, but equally or less sensitive than adults when evaluating the potential costs (Ernst et al., 2005).
The executive system does not fully develop until early adulthood; however, the socio-emotional system peaks in development during adolescence (Lambert et al., 2014). Furthermore, the sensitivity of the socio-emotional system is highest during mid-adolescence (Steinberg et al., 2009) because reward sensitivity develops along an inverted U-shaped curve (Harden and Tucker-Drob, 2011; Romer, 2010), and the peak in sensitivity occurs during mid-adolescence (Steinberg et al., 2009).
The cognitive control executive network, which helps control functions such as self-regulation, planning, and thinking ahead, matures gradually through adolescence and is mostly independent from puberty (Steinberg, 2004). This system consists mostly of outer regions of the brain, which include the lateral prefrontal and parietal cortices along with the parts of the anterior cingulate cortex (Steinberg, 2007). Before the executive system is fully functional, it may not be able to sufficiently moderate the socio-emotional system (Lambert et al., 2014), especially in times of high emotional arousal. When there is little emotional arousal during adolescence, the executive function system may successfully impose control over the risky behavior, but when emotional arousal is high, adolescents are at a heightened risk of partaking in risky behavior (Steinberg, 2007). This system interaction therefore may lead to risky behavior that is controlled by emotions, especially for those high in urges and low in ability to control these urges (Galvan et al., 2006).
Brain systems involved in the dual model of adolescent risk-taking
The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking explains risk-taking behavior in terms of brain development. The brain matures and develops well into young adulthood (Blakemore and Choudhury, 2006), and more specifically, changes in the prefrontal cortex are not complete until the mid-20s (Durston et al., 2006; Steinberg, 2009). Underdevelopment in this region is associated with a lack of impulse control, judgment, decision-making, planning, and integrating logical thinking and emotions (Casey et al., 2008). The prefrontal cortex is considered to be ‘the seat’ of executive functioning (Semrud-Clikeman, 2012), and controls aspects such as attention, long-term planning, organization, response inhibition (Judge, 2012), and deliberate and controlled processing (Dahl, 2004). These functions develop through adolescence and rely on the frontal lobe circuitry, which is still in the process of maturing (Judge, 2012). Further support for the idea that developmental changes in the prefrontal cortex are partly responsible for risky behavior was shown in one study when a negative correlation between risk-taking and executive function development was found (Pharo et al., 2011). During this time, adolescents are learning to understand and reason like adults, but they do not process information as quickly. This delay in information processing leads to a decreased ability of making real-time, reasonable decisions. This developmental process creates the tendency for adolescents to discount long-term risks and give too much weight to short-term advantages (McLaughlin, 2010). In cases of sexting, a teenager may give too much weight to pleasing a peer who is asking for the photo, without giving enough weight to potential consequences once the photo is sent.
The socio-emotional system, which is a big part of award sensitivity, is mostly mediated by the limbic and paralimbic brain regions (Steinberg, 2010). Maturation of the limbic system occurs before the development of the frontal lobe is complete (McLaughlin, 2010). The socio-emotional system, which is localized mainly in the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Strang et al., 2013), is responsible for reward sensitivity (Dahl, 2004). Increased activity in the nucleus accumbens has been shown during adolescence, which is a subcortical structure associated with processing reward salience (Galvan et al., 2006). These findings suggest differential development of bottom-up limbic systems (which are implicated in incentive and emotional processing) and top-down control system during adolescence. This developmental pattern may be more extreme in adolescents who are susceptible to heightened emotional reactivity, which in turn increases the likelihood of poor outcomes (Casey et al., 2008).
When presented with emotional stimuli, adolescents have shown less coordinated activity of cortical and subcortical regions than adults, which suggests adolescents have immature emotion regulation (Steinberg, 2009). During adolescence, the executive system is more underdeveloped than the socio-emotional system. This imbalance may increase the likelihood of adolescents partaking in risky behavior (Dahl, 2004). When examining emotionality in the context of sexting, it has been found that after a breakup, it is more likely that photos, which were shared willingly, will be distributed without permission to many other individuals (Sacco et al., 2010). This finding helps support the idea that when emotionality is at its height, it may overpower adolescent reasoning, especially in emotional situations, which may lead to impulsive decision-making.
Risky sexual behavior
Research on risky sexual online behavior, such as sending explicit photos using social media, is still in its infancy (Baumgartner et al., 2010). Engagement in risky behavior, including risky online sexual behavior, has been shown to increase during adolescence (Cubbin et al., 2005; Steinberg, 2008), peak during mid-adolescence, and decline into adulthood (Parsons et al., 1997; Shaw et al., 1992; Steinberg, 2004, 2007, 2008). The changes occurring during adolescent development, including biological and cognitive changes, lead to an increase in sexual awareness and interest (Baumgartner et al., 2010). This increase in sexual interest was exemplified in a study which found attention for sexually relevant topics increases during adolescence (Miltner et al., 2001).
Research related to the dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking has been largely focused on adolescent impulsivity (Ellingson et al., 2013). Generally, there are two facets of impulsivity, lack of planning, such as not securing a drive home when drinking, and sensation seeking, such as drinking alcohol (Whiteside and Lynam, 2001). Approximately 75 per cent of teenagers know sexting is risky and may have possible negative consequences (Kopecky, 2011). However, adolescents are particularly vulnerable to impulsive behavior (McLaughlin, 2010), and immediate access to technology – such as cell phones, which can quickly distribute pictures and messages – may potentially lead to dangerous consequences, such as having the photos disseminated without permission (Korenis and Billick, 2014). With sexting, impulsivity may take over and the message is sent before consequences of engaging in the action have been fully evaluated (McLaughlin, 2010).
Recommendations and Future Research
While working with adolescents to prevent adolescent sexting, it is important to know what drives, influences, and also what decreases the behavior. The dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking has potential for being a guide for prevention of adolescent sexting, both in practice and through creating policies (Lambert et al., 2014). If the role that this model plays in risky behavior and the extent to which these two cognitive systems influence adolescents is clarified and specified, it may help to advise the development of preventions and interventions for the risky behavior. Using this model, when applied to sexting, may suggest that the best way to prevent potentially harmful sexting would be to teach adolescents to recognize emotional situations, and step away to more closely evaluate their intentions before being tempted to send a photo.
It is wrong to assume all youth who engage in a behavior that is legally considered a sexual offense will continue to engage in deviant behavior beyond adolescence (DiCataldo, 2009). Furthermore, when adolescents receive incredibly harsh punishments, such as being added to the sex offender registry or sentenced to serve jail time, it may interfere with the development process by condemning the youth through these penalties. This condemnation may send the message that the youth is deviant, which may result in future deviant behavior (DiCataldo, 2009). Additionally, harsh punishments may disrupt the education of the youth, assign the youth with a criminal record, limit future opportunities, and lead to long-term incarceration where the incarcerated may be exposed to extreme violence (Moffitt, 1993). When an adolescent engages in sexual misconduct, it may lead to the adolescent being labeled a juvenile sex offender, and society tends to frame this group as youth with ‘discourse of deviant desires’, instead of a group in need of guidance and help (DiCataldo, 2009). This is especially true given that numerous cases of adolescent sexting appear to be voluntary and may simply represent instances of sexual expression or sexual experimentation.
Legal reform in this area should take into consideration the age, development, and sexual development of the individuals involved in sexting incidences, in order to assure the adolescents are truly capable of seeing and understanding the long-term consequences of their actions (Sacco et al., 2010). Moreover, the laws should consider whether the photo was self-shared and volitional, or taken and/or distributed without the knowledge or permission of the person in the photo, as well as the age of the individuals at the time of the incident (McLaughlin, 2010). A case of a 12-year-old sending an explicit image to a 20-year-old should not be handled in the same manner as a 16-year-old sending a photo to another 16-year-old.
The dual model of adolescent risk-taking may be applied to adolescent sexting and help identify groups at greater risk for the behavior (Klettke et al., 2014) by possibly pointing out individuals who are especially prone to risk-taking in emotional situations. Additionally, risk factors associated with adolescent sexting may be identified, such as other behaviors that influence the occurrence of sexting. Once risk factors and groups at higher risk are identified, interventions may be designed to help reduce the number of adolescents partaking in sexting behavior. Future research should examine the dual systems model of adolescent risk-taking in the context of adolescent sexting.
Conclusion
When adolescents express their sexuality via sexting, they may be accused of being sexually deviant and charged or placed on sex offender registries, even when the behavior was harmless and between two teenagers in a relationship. Essentially, many of these adolescents are being charged for impulsive teenage indiscretions (Wolak et al., 2012). In reality, not all adolescent sexting is sexually deviant behavior and not all instances result in harm. Furthermore, harsh punishments may harm the development of these adolescents (DiCataldo, 2009). If these cases could instead be examined in the framework of adolescent development, the adolescents could be helped instead of punished, and ways could be identified to help reduce the likelihood of the behavior occurring in the first place.
Adolescents have always had problems with impulsivity and shortsightedness, and the only way to change this is for the adolescents to mature. The best prevention for adolescent sexting would be to lessen opportunities for the behavior to have harmful consequences (Steinberg, 2007). Cell phone use has steadily increased among adolescents, and it is unlikely sexting by adolescents will be eradicated. Research on adolescent development in relation to the technology they are using, and the behaviors they are engaging in, will help reduce and prevent problems caused by adolescent sexting. This research may also inform better methods of handling these situations in a legal context such as how laws address the many contexts in which teen sexting may occur and the punishments allowed to be assigned.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.