London: Health experts have blamed social networking sites like Facebook for the recent rise in sexually transmitted diseases among teens and young adults in America.
They said users letting their guards down before meeting someone in person may be the cause of the rise.
Experts also said online social networking can make it easier to move on to multiple partners before learning about their sexual history.
According to Florida`s Seminole County Health Department (SCHD), there has been a 200 per cent rise in Syphilis cases within the last year.
Chlamydia is also at the rise, with three to four million new cases occurring each year, said experts.
Comparatively, 50 per cent of all Americans are expected to contract Human Papillomavirus (HPV) at some point in their lives. One in six Americans has herpes, according to their report.
Health officials said patients ages 14 to 24 are the ones most often seen with the diseases.
“They`re using the social networks. They``re not talking to their parents, and they``re hooking up with people that they really don``t know anything about,” the Daily Mail quoted SCHD disease intervention specialist Preston Boyce as telling ClickOrlando.com.
“They`re contracting diseases, and then they go their separate ways.
“There wasn`t a bond that was developed in the first place, so they`re just meeting people, and that bond wasn`t there so it`s easy to walk away after the first time,” he said.
ANI
