50 Ways Teens Get Trouble

Online Teens Under Pressure to be X-Rated

Today’s teens are the first generation to live their lives online. Sixty percent spend an average of twenty hours a week on computers, and 30% spends closer to forty hours. The average teen also sends and receives over 1700 text messages a month.

Who they are online is who they are.

Life online happens 24/7, so a teen has to constantly update his Facebook profile by posting a constant stream of pictures and new information. Calendars and date books are public. Every time the teen opens her profile, she reports what mood she’s in and what music she is listening to. She replies to messages from her friends -- one is going through a messy break-up and another flunked a midterm.  Every detail of the teen’s life is accessible to all friends, who also live in cyberspace.

The sad news is that new evidence indicates that teens are under pressure to appear more popular, more sexually loose, more attractive, and more of a drinker online than they are in real life. A study from the University of Exeter found that girls ages 12 to 15 years old felt pressured by websites such as “Assess My Breasts,” “Rate My Looks,” and even MySpace and Facebook to look beautiful and thin. A 2006 American Medical Association study of female college students found that 84% believed that online images of “girls gone wild” contribute to bad behaviors and to dangerous male behaviors toward females during spring breaks.  The same survey found that 57% of female students thought promiscuity was a way to fit in, 40% had unprotected sex during a spring break, 12% felt forced or pressured to have sex, and 20% regretted doing so.

Teens who post details of their “hook-ups” (casual sexual encounters) in order to feel popular often secretly regret having casual sex. One study in the Journal of Sexual Research shows students hook up in order to feel part of a group, even though they would prefer to have sex within romantic, caring relationships. They fail to appreciate that others in their group feel the same way they do. A study from the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that over 40% sexually active girls ages 14 to 16 years old were agreeing to unwanted sex to please others, and 66% were sorry they lost their virginity.

Parents often do not realize that their teens are under pressure to conform to images of what a popular teen looks like online.  Adults worry more about online predators or that inappropriate images and public diary entries will hurt their child’s career.  No doubt this is a valid concern.  A study from the University of Massachusetts indicated that 25% of college admission officers and 75% of employers “google” every applicant’s name.  However, the majority of teens (57%) believe that whatever they post on the Internet should never be used against them, according to a Junior Achievement poll.

Parents can talk to teens about resisting pressures to conform to online images.  They can help their teens regain the freedom to set boundaries and be their authentic selves, and not just part of a group identity.  They can introduce teens to the adult world, where most interaction is face-to-face, and where self-presentation is partly about self-survival. Teens, in turn, can teach their parents about cyberspace worlds.  It can be interesting to discover that a computer is not just about checking car prices and buying gifts on Amazon – it can be a network of intimacy and sharing and healthy self-expression, as it is to most teens.