A qualitative study of children, young people and 'sexting ... - NSPCC

A qualitative study of children, young people and ‘sexting’
The remainder of the report is structured as follows. The first section considers the importance of
mobile digital technologies in young people’s lives, showing the ways in which they are used, lived and
experienced, and highlighting the intense emotional bonds young people describe with their phones.
Next we discuss the unequal gender relations, and the culture of normalised sexual violence in the two
schools where fieldwork was conducted, arguing that an appreciation of gender is central to understanding
the various practices of sexting. In the third section, we turn specifically to the role of technologies in
mediating sexualised communication between teenagers. Here we discuss the way particular uses of new
digital technologies may put pressure on girls, and subject their bodies to more intense sexual scrutiny.
In section four, we highlight the meanings of sexualised images and communications for the boys and
girls, through a discussion of the system or currency known as ‘ratings’. The fifth section is concerned
with sexting and gendered/sexualised double standards, and discusses the on-going policing of girls’–
but not boys’– (sexual) reputations and the role new mobile devices play in this. We also examine girls’
responses to both the physical and verbal harassment they experience from boys in and outside of the
school, and to similar pressures as they are mediated through digital technologies. We reveal that girls
are often articulate and cogent critics of the unfairness they experience, and are creative in their attempts
to actively try to resist, but they are often trapped in situations in which they feel silenced or feel they
have to treat the harassment as a joke.
Throughout the analysis we move back and forth between online and off-line worlds, since this is how
young people experience their lives. Technologies are not felt as separate or an adjunct to ‘real life’,
but rather are intimately entangled in the making and unmaking of young people’s everyday lives and
relationships. Interspersed in our analysis are ‘text boxes’ that vividly illustrate, in young people’s own
words, what sexting means to them. (A glossary is provided in Appendix 4 to capture the young people’s
lexicon and contemporary slang).
The report concludes with a brief discussion of findings, policy recommendations, and directions for
future research and resources.
1. young people and mobile internet technologies
Mobile technologies, and in particular smart phones, suffuse the everyday lives of young people,
structuring and shaping their experiences. As this group of 14–15 year old girls told us, their mobiles are
a constant from waking up in the morning to going to sleep at night.
I: So how much are you using your [mobile] phone do you think in an average day?
R: Like all the time.
R: I use it to wake myself up, then I use it to phone Riley or you to see where you are to meet each
other in the morning, and then when I get on the way to school I will be texting people from
school.
R: Yeah and using it to get the time.
R: Yeah to get the time. I use my phone every second of the day. If I am not using it I feel a bit
weird.
R: I use it to go to sleep with my music on.
R: I talk on my phone all day long.
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