Sexting at an Early Age: Patterns and Poor Health-Related Consequences of Pressured Sexting in Middle and High School.

Background: Sexting is sending, receiving, or forwarding sexually explicit messages, images, or videos through electronic means. Research has examined sexting in high school and college students. This study seeks to add to the existing literature by exploring the nature of pressured or problematic sexting in middle school-aged subjects.

Bullying, Cyberbullying, Anxiety, and Depression in a Sample of Youth during the Coronavirus Pandemic.

While we know that the pandemic and its social isolation, loss of school experiences, increased screen use, and financial stress have likely had a psychological impact upon children and teens, little research has been done directly with youth to assess social and emotional factors during the pandemic and in its immediate aftermath. In this study, a sample of 240 youth reported on their experiences with bullying, fighting, sexting, cyberbullying, anxiety, and depression during the period from March 2020 to April 2021. The results indicated that bullying, cyberbullying, sexting, and fighting showed only small or no increases, but anxiety and depression were dramatically increased relative to before the pandemic.

Risky Business: Talking with Your Patients About Cyberbullying and Sexting.

This article reviews cyberbullying and sexting research and presents new research exploring relatively neglected areas of cyberbullying and cell phone ownership among children and outcomes following sexting in college. Two samples are studied: 4584 elementary school children and 1332 college freshman. Findings include: owning a cell phone increased the risk of becoming involved in cyberbullying in grades 3, 4, and 5; and, of college freshman who sexted, 61% reported no outcomes, 19% reported negative outcomes, 13% reported positive outcomes, and 7% reported mixed outcomes.

Defining Cyberbullying.

Is cyberbullying essentially the same as bullying, or is it a qualitatively different activity? The lack of a consensual, nuanced definition has limited the field's ability to examine these issues. Evidence suggests that being a perpetrator of one is related to being a perpetrator of the other; furthermore, strong relationships can also be noted between being a victim of either type of attack. It also seems that both types of social cruelty have a psychological impact, although the effects of being cyberbullied may be worse than those of being bullied in a traditional sense (evidence here is by no means definitive).

Spinning our wheels: improving our ability to respond to bullying and cyberbullying.

Bullying is physical and or psychological abuse perpetuated by one powerful child upon another, with the intention to harm or dominate. Bullying and aggression in schools has reached epidemic proportions. Abusive bullying behaviors begin in elementary school, peak during middle school, and begin to subside in high school.