`Sexting` common among urban minority youth

Washington: As many as 25-50 percent of young people may be indulging in sexting - the use of technology to send or receive sexually explicit messages, photos, or videos.

In fact, sexting is relatively common among ethnic minority youth, according to Melissa Fleschler Peskin, PhD and coauthors, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health. They calculated the prevalence of sexting based on data collected from more than 1,000 tenth graders from a large urban school district. They reported that 20 percent of students reported sending a nude or semi-nude picture or video or a sexual text message—any one of these considered a "sext"—and more than 30 percent reported receiving a sext. Additional, sexts were often shared with unintended recipients, and one-third of the youths reported sharing or receiving sexts that were meant to be private. The study has been published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. ANI