Citation

Gassó AM, Klettke B, Agustina JR, Montiel I. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019; 16(13): e16132364.

Affiliation

Faculty of Law, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, 08017 Barcelona, Spain.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph16132364

PMID

31277335

Abstract

The practice of creating and sharing sexual images via technological devices, known as sexting, has received crescent attention in the past years, especially due to the increase of adolescent engagement in this behavior. Although consensual sexting is not prima facie a crime, as some research has shown, it has the potential to be a risky behavior, and a threshold to get exposure to dangerous kinds of victimization as sextortion, online grooming or cyberbullying. In this context, teenagers represent a vulnerable group due to their limited ability of self-regulation, their high susceptibility to peer pressure, their technophilia, and their growing sexual curiosity. The present paper aims to review the scientific literature to analyze the relationship between mental health and sexting as a potentially risky behavior and its association with online victimization. The results and implications will be discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

adolescents; child victimization; mental health; sexting; threshold