Lowell Sun
12/10/2011
By
Sarah Favot
LOWELL -- The way that teenage boys who engage in sexting are viewed is starkly different from the way girls are viewed, a study led by two UMass Lowell researchers has found.
Andrew Harris, an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, and Judith Davidson, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education, are completing a research project on the prevention of teen sexting with a $660,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Harris said after analyzing data from focus groups with more than 1,000 teens in three states, what struck him most about the findings were the differences in the effect sexting has on status between genders.
"Boys are incentivized by their peer group to get a lot of pictures of girls because it's a status thing," he said. "There is this weird competition."
Girls, on the other hand, who take naked photos of themselves and send them to boys, have a lot to lose in terms of their reputation and how they are viewed by their peers, Harris said.
Harris presented his latest findings yesterday at UMass Lowell where a partnership between the school and District Attorney Gerry Leone's office was announced.
UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan and Leone signed an agreement that aims to develop research partnerships, improve data-management systems to efficiency in the District Attorney's Office and foster criminal justice research, offer internships and partnerships for UMass Lowell students and receive grant funding.
Harris, who also spearheaded the new agreement, said the partnership will offer school-based crime-prevention programs for youth as well as research initiatives. He said the programs and research will focus on Lowell.
"We're zeroing in on Lowell," he said. "We met about problems and issues around kids in Lowell, especially high-risk youth."
Yesterday, Harris also conducted focus groups with 72 educators across Middlesex County, which is another part of his research on sexting.
He said he asked the educators how they perceive youth to use technology, what sexting is and why they think teens engage in it.
Harris said the next phase of the research is to analyze this data and data from focus groups with adults and combine it with data collected by partner researchers in two other states.
Harris said although specific findings have not been concluded because the study isn't over, he told educators he met with yesterday to not think of sexting as one behavior, but as one often combined with other behaviors like low self-esteem and depression. Educators should also think about how to change the behavior, which is not just getting girls to stop sending naked photos, but to change the perception that young boys have toward young girls.
He said he is also trying to move away from "sexting" as a label because teens don't respond to labels.
"When we were trying to define (sexting) we couldn't come up with a definition," he said.
The findings were presented four days after a national survey about sexting was published in the journal Pediatrics.
The survey showed that only 1 percent of kids ages 10 to 17 have shared images of themselves or others that involve explicit nudity.
This recent study showed that fewer teens were engaging in sexting than previously thought. An Associated Press and MTV poll found that 7 percent of teens, ages 14 to 17, said they had sent a naked photo of themselves.
Harris said he thought the results published in Pediatrics, conducted by a researcher at the University of New Hampshire, was probably conservative.
"Just because numbers are low doesn't mean we shouldn't be paying attention to it," he said.
Harris said his research is not focused on the numbers of teens who are sexting but is focused on behaviors and perceptions.