Justin Patchin

Hey, David, thanks for having me.

Well, there's a couple ways I can answer that question.

I think parents sometimes maybe underestimate the risk, but in the media and generally speaking, we overestimate the risk.

So our research shows that about one in four

teens has sent an explicit image of themselves to others.

Now that number is higher than it once was.

It's gone up over the last 10 years we've been studying this.

But that still means more than 75% of kids aren't doing this.

So I think that's important to stress because I think the more we

push this narrative that all teens are doing this, the more it actually might encourage the behavior, because if we know anything about adolescents, it's that they want to do what they think their friends are doing.

So it is a concern, certainly, and it's something parents need to talk to their kids about.

Well, that's right.

And I think as much as, you know, I'm a parent of a teen, as much as I wouldn't want my son to engage in these behaviors, if, you know, he was doing so in a private relationship, nobody else found out about it, you know, committed consent, the whole thing, then fine.

The real concern, of course, lies in when those images are shared beyond their original target, right?

So

If boyfriend and girlfriend share them with each other, whatever.

Again, we might have some concerns with that.

But the concerns are when it's shared with a friend, when it's posted online, when those images get distributed widely.

And of course, the other concern is, technically speaking,

If a 15, 16, 17-year-old creates an image like this, shares it with somebody else, they've now created and distributed child pornography.