Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The show that asks the questions other shows are afraid to ask. The Last Show with David Cooper. For young people, sexting each other is often framed as harmless experimentation, as fun, or a serious problem. But new research suggests a somewhat more complicated and troubling reality for teens navigating intimacy digitally, where their privacy can disappear in seconds.
I'm here with Justin Patchen, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, to discuss just this topic. Justin, welcome to the show.
Hey, David, thanks for having me.
So I think every parent's fear is photos exist of their kid that their kids are willingly taking at the time and they're going to get out there. Do parents wildly overestimate how much of this activity is actually going on with young people?
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
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Chapter 2: What alarming trends did the sexting study reveal about young people?
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.
Let's talk about some of the harms because I do think the media overblows it. I'm sure there are instances where two kids or young people are engaging activity. It never gets out on the internet. Fine, whatever. We were all kids once. But what about the cases where some harm really occurs?
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. So technically, by the letter of the law, there could be some significant legal implications for that.
Thankfully, I think we're getting a little bit better at handling those situations more informally, but the reality is there could be some pretty serious consequences.
Got it. Now, what percentage of teens who engage with this behavior experience some level of harm, some level of consent breach, friends seeing it and ending up on the internet in the extreme cases?
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Chapter 3: Do parents overestimate the prevalence of sexting among teens?
What percentage of kids sort of experience that?
Well, we explored a couple angles of that in our most recent research. And so among the 25% or so who had sent an image to somebody else, nearly half said that image was shared with a third party without their knowledge. That's a concern, right? Nearly half.
And about a half had experienced sextortion, meaning somebody threatened them for harm, usually threatening to share the images with family and friends or posting them online. If they didn't acquiesce to some demand, oftentimes you need to send me more images or you need to send me money, gift cards, cash app. And so at least with respect to those two potential harms, the risk is basically 50-50.
That is extremely alarming to me. When you saw those numbers as someone who researches this stuff, did you kind of do a double take?
We very much did, and I'm the one who analyzes the data, and I looked at it and just triple-checked to make sure we didn't put the decimal in the wrong place. And then we tried to just brainstorm if we might have been missing something.
Like, are there instances, for example, where boyfriend-girlfriend are maybe playfully saying, well, if you don't send me more images, I'm going to do this, that, or the other thing, and that were being interpreted by the young people we surveyed as sextortion. But
The problem is there hasn't been a lot of research on sextortion and non-consensual sharing of these images, particularly among minors. And so we need more research to do, to be conducted to kind of corroborate what we found. But it was super concerning. You're right.
As a rational adult that I am, and I imagine any parent with a teenager listening, I mean, the obvious kind of advice for kids is do not do this. The risks are too high. But as with anything prohibition related with teenagers, that might be tough. Are there kind of like, it's weird to say it because in the perfect world, kids wouldn't be doing this stuff because of the risks.
But are there harm reduction tips for parents that you might want to get out?
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Chapter 4: What percentage of teens are actually sharing explicit images?
And we had thought about this for years and we didn't really want to ruin our careers at that point to try to argue such a thing. But at some point we just deduced, we came to the conclusion that We need to have a conversation about exactly what you just suggested in these harm reduction models instead of this sort of abstinence only approach that hasn't worked with regular sexual behaviors.
And so the kinds of things we recommended. So in that article, we basically provide 10 strategies to reduce the potential for harm. And it's things like, you know, make sure you're engaging in these behaviors with somebody you know and trust. Now, again, that's a little questionable when you're talking about teenagers, even adults, but at least that's a start. Don't include pictures of your face.
Don't include identifiable characteristics like a tattoo. Don't do it in your bedroom where people can see exactly your environment. The issue is you want plausible deniability that it's actually you in that image should that image be circulated beyond your original intent. So you just need to be smart with how you're doing it.
I see why the phrase safe sexting in the context of young people makes adults nervous. But I do think like a harm reduction approach is more realistic here.
Yeah, you're 100 percent right. And in fact, the email, the communication we got in response to that article was very bimodal to use a statistical term. People either loved it or hated it. A lot of people said, yeah, we need to do this. It's past time. We need to focus on this. And others are just like, no, they shouldn't be doing it. It's a crime. You're teaching them that it's okay to do it.
And that couldn't be further from the truth. We need to accept the reality that teens are teens. They're going to experiment with technology. They're going to experiment with their sexuality. They're going to explore their identity. And we just want to make that as safe as possible.
I kind of hate when folks in the media sensationalize things, but I am curious, maybe even just in the context of everyone, not just teenagers, about sextortion. What are some of the things that can happen with that?
Well, the big concern, and this is a growing issue, is... When threats are made, the children, the young people who are threatened, they feel backed in a corner because they've been told now for years that they shouldn't share these images.
And so if they do, and somebody threatens them, threatens to call the police or share the images with their friends, they really feel like there's nothing they can do and there's no way out. So we have seen some examples of young people ending their lives as a result of this. And that's why it's super important
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Chapter 5: What are the potential harms associated with sexting?
So having that open line of communication between the parent and the child is hugely important.
Are there things that sort of regulators or law enforcement can do to really kind of attack this problem from the point of the people doing the extortion?
Yes. So our child pornography laws or sexting laws are very antiquated. Not very many states actually have sexting laws. So we need to recognize the variability in these behaviors and acknowledge consensual, somewhat safe sexting among romantic partners as sort of a separate thing to maybe deal with informally.
those instances where there is extortion or threats of harm or images are shared without the permission of somebody, we need to treat those more seriously. But we can't just pass a law increasing penalties and punishment because we know that teens aren't really deterred by the threat of that punishment. So we need to take a holistic approach to this problem.
Justin, I've enjoyed the chat. Thanks for getting some of this info out here.
Thanks, David. I appreciate it.
Justin Patchen is a professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and co-director of the Cyber Bullying Research Center.
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