Poster #228 - Predictors of Early Sexting Onset in Adolescence

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Although sexting is now commonplace during adolescence, cross-sectional correlations with substance use, depression, suicide attempts, anxiety, and exposure to adverse childhood experiences have raised concerns that adolescents’ sexting is a marker of risk (ACEs; Frankel et al. 2018; Temple et al., 2012, 2014). Yet there are few longitudinal studies on sexting and little consideration of the context in which sexting occurs. As with other sexual behaviors, the developmental timing of the emergence of sexting may be a critical consideration. The current study examines this question by examining prospective predictors of early sexting emergence. Drawing on the sexual risk literature, we anticipated that higher levels of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and mental health problems would each be associated with earlier onset of sexting.

Participants included 635 high school students (53.4% female; 71.3% White) who completed three annual assessments during their 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. Socio-demographic data included age, gender, and race. Each year, students reported whether they had ever sexted, age at first sext, mental health symptoms over the past month, and lifetime exposure to 10 distinct ACEs.

Cox proportional hazard regression models were computed to assess whether ACEs and mental health symptoms predicted the emergence of sexting behavior. Consistent with extant research, 48.2% of students reported sexting by 11th grade. Of those who had sexted, the median age of first sexting was 16.92 years. The peak “risk” for initiating sexting was estimated at age 17. Number of ACEs significantly predicted earlier sexting, with each additional ACE adding an 11% increase in the hazard ratio. Similarly, mental health problems were predictive of early sexting, with each unit increase in mental health problems increasing the hazard ratio by 18%. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the hazard plots for age of sexting onset at one standard deviation below the mean, at the mean, one standard deviation above the mean, and more than one standard deviation above the mean for ACEs and mental health problems, respectively. Those with greater number of ACESs and mental health problems had steeper hazard plots, indicating an earlier age of sexting.

These findings are consistent with findings on sexual risk behavior that point to ACEs and mental health problems as significant predictors of precocious onset. They also support the idea that sexting and emotional problems may be more tightly linked in earlier verses later adolescence (Ševčíková, 2016). Whereas mental health problems are frequently presumed to be a negative consequence of sexting on the basis of cross-sectional associations, the current finding suggest that adolescents with more mental health problems and ACEs might be more vulnerable to early sexting and perhaps to peer or romantic pressure to sext. Although future research still needs to disentangle the direction of the effects between sexting and mental health problems, pinpointing populations that might be more at risk for early sexting can help target interventions.

Authors

• Davia Beth Steinberg, Wayne State University
  Presenting Author

• Valerie Simon, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Poco D. Kernsmith, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joanne P. Smith-Darden, Wayne State University
  Non-Presenting Author