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Sexual Communication in the Digital Age: Adolescent Sexual Communication with Parents and Friends About Sexting, Pornography, and Starting Relationships Online

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A Correction to this article was published on 07 June 2021

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Abstract

Online sexual behaviors like sexting, viewing pornography online, and using the internet to start relationships are increasingly common among adolescents, yet research has struggled to keep pace. This study fills a gap in the sexual communication literature by examining the extent to which a sample of high school adolescents are discussing digital sexual topics with their parents and best friends compared to more traditional sexual topics (pregnancy, STDs, condoms, and abstinence). Participants were 226 U.S. high school students (M age = 16.25; 58% girls; 46% White, 25% Latino, 24% Black) who reported their digital sexual behavior and sexual communication in the past year. Rates of sexting, viewing pornography, and starting relationships online were high (89% had engaged in at least one of these behaviors; 35% engaged in all three behaviors); yet communication about these topics was generally low: only 7% of youth had discussed all three digital topics with their parents and 19% had discussed all three with their best friends. This is in contrast to nearly 50% of youth who discussed traditional topics with their parents and best friends. Patterns of communication and digital sexual behavior were similar by gender, with the exception of pornography: boys were more likely to view pornography and discuss it with friends than girls. Implications for adolescent development in the digital age are discussed.

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Funding

Jacqueline Nesi is supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH; K23MH122669). Anne Maheux was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 1940700. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of NIMH or NSF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Laura Widman, Hannah Javidi & Reina Evans

  2. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA

    Anne J. Maheux & Sophia Choukas-Bradley

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Bradley/Hasbro Research Center, Rhode Island Hospital, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Jacqueline Nesi

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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Laura Widman and Sophia Choukas-Bradley. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Laura Widman and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Widman, L., Javidi, H., Maheux, A.J. et al. Sexual Communication in the Digital Age: Adolescent Sexual Communication with Parents and Friends About Sexting, Pornography, and Starting Relationships Online. Sexuality & Culture 25, 2092–2109 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-021-09866-1

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