Citation

Vandenbosch L, van Oosten JM, Peter J. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 2015; 18(12): 697-703.

Affiliation

The Amsterdam School of Communication Research, ASCoR, University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam, Netherlands .

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/cyber.2015.0197

PMID

26588715

Abstract

The goal of this study was to investigate whether exposure to sexual reality television content and Internet pornography (IP) is related to sexual self-presentation on social media. Based on a two-wave panel survey among 1,765 adolescents aged 13-17 years, we found that watching sexual reality television content stimulated adolescents to produce and distribute sexual images of themselves on social media. In turn, sexual self-presentation on social media led adolescents to watch sexual reality television content more frequently. These relationships were similar among boys and girls. No reciprocal relationship between exposure to IP and boys' and girls' sexual self-presentation on social media was found. The results suggest that sexual content in mainstream mass media may predict adolescents' sexually oriented behavior on social media and vice versa. Moreover, adolescents seem to differentiate between types of sexual content (i.e., mainstream versus more explicit sexual content) when incorporating sexual media content in their sexual behavior online.

Language: en