'Sexting' Study Finds Low Rate Among Young

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This is the VOA Special English Technology Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglish A new study shows that "sexting" is not as common among young people as earlier findings suggested. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire interviewed more than one thousand five hundred Internet users between the ages of ten and seventeen. Just two and a half percent of them said they had either sent or received naked pictures over their mobile phones or the Internet. Earlier surveys had suggested that as many as twenty percent of teens were involved in such activities. But one problem is that some of those findings included young adults -- eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds. Dan Rauzi is senior director for technology programs for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He says another problem is confusion among teenagers about what exactly "sexting" means. For example, he says suggestive images like someone in a bathing suit have sometimes been reported as sexting. Marian Merritt is the Internet safety advocate for the computer security company Norton. She says the New Hampshire researchers considered this confusion. "They segmented the really most egregious or dangerous kinds of images people might be posting and sending from texts that might be more suggestive." Ms. Merritt says very few of the images in this latest study would have been considered illegal. "The kinds of images or videos that might constitute child pornography is very low. I

Published 2012-01-12 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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