Loading...
Happy or unhappy? Mental health correlates of receiving sexts and unsolicited sexual images
Sciacca, Beatrice Mazzone, Angela Loftsson, Magnus O’Higgins Norman, James Foody, Mairéad
Sciacca, Beatrice
Mazzone, Angela
Loftsson, Magnus
O’Higgins Norman, James
Foody, Mairéad
Citations
Altmetric
item.page.identifiers
Date
2024-02-15
item.page.type
journal article
item.page.downloads
Citation
Sciacca, Beatrice, Mazzone, Angela, Loftsson, Magnus, O’Higgins Norman, James, & Foody, Mairéad. Happy or Unhappy? Mental Health Correlates of Receiving Sexts and Unsolicited Sexual Images. Youth & Society, doi:10.1177/0044118x241230639
Abstract
This study investigated the prevalence of receiving sexts among adolescents and its relationship with depressive symptoms and self-esteem. A survey was administered to 728 high school students in Sweden in 2019 and 2020 (50.4% girls and 46.4% boys) using a cross-sectional design. Findings showed that significantly more boys (28.4%) than girls (12.6%) reported having happily received a sexual picture, while significantly more girls (48.8%) than boys (s.2%) reported having received an unwanted sexual picture at least once in their life. Happily receiving a sexual picture was not related to any of the investigated mental health correlates among girls, whereas it was positively associated with depressive symptoms among boys. Receiving an unsolicited sexual picture was associated with higher depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem for both boys and girls. This work offers a novel approach to studying the reception of sexual images by teenagers Practical implications of the present findings are discussed.
item.page.funder
Publisher
SAGE Publications
item.page.publisherdoi
License
CC BY