The sexting phenomenon in adolescents, Cuenca-Ecuador

Abstract

Background: sexting is the sending of sexual content, made by the sender himself and sent to other people. Sexting can involve legal problems and even cyberBullying, cyberBullying, or sextorsion. Objective: to determine the frequency and characterize sexting in adolescents of the Millennium Educational Unit Manuela Garaicoa de Calderón, Cuenca 2018. Materials and methods: an observational, quantitative, descriptive study was carried out, a survey was applied to 268 adolescents enrolled in the participating institution for the 2017-2018 school period, which were randomly selected, it was inquired about sociodemographic characteristics, frequency and characterization of sexting. Results: the average age was 15.86 years, the most frequent age group was between 14 to 16 years, 67.9% female, 69.4% lived in urban areas. 63.1% affirmed to practice sexting; 58.2% was passive and 20.5% active. Regarding passive sexting, the most frequent type of content was photos, 77.6%, with Facebook being the most used social network 78.8%. In active sexting, their practice was voluntary in 81.8% and it was characterized by sending texts with proposals about sexual activity through a mobile phone in 41.8%. Conclusions: the practice of sexting in adolescents was high, with passive sexting being twice more frequent than active.