Social Media and Sexual Behavior Among Adolescents: Is there a link?

Megan Landry; Monique Turner; Amita Vyas; Susan Wood

doi:10.2196/publichealth.7149

Social Media and Sexual Behavior Among Adolescents: Is there a link?

JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2017 May 19;3(2):e28. doi: 10.2196/publichealth.7149.

Authors

Megan Landry^#¹, Monique Turner^#¹, Amita Vyas^#¹, Susan Wood^#²

Affiliations

¹ Milken Institute School of Public HealthDepartment of Prevention and Community HealthThe George Washington UniversityWashington, DCUnited States.
² Milken Institute School of Public HealthDepartment of Health PolicyThe George Washington UniversityWashington, DCUnited States.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Adolescent sexual risk taking and its consequences remain a global public health concern. Empirical evidence on the impact that social media has on sexual health behaviors among youth is sparse.

Objective: The study aimed to examine the relationship between social media and the change in sexual risk over time and whether parental monitoring moderates this relationship.

Methods: This study comprised a sample of 555 Latino youth aged 13-19 years from Maryland, United States completing baseline and follow-up surveys. Mixed-effects linear regression was used to examine the relationship between social media and the change in sexual risk over time and whether parental monitoring moderated the relationship.

Results: Sexual risk behaviors significantly increased between baseline (T1) and follow up (T2) (mean=0.432 vs mean=0.734, P<.001). Youth sending more than 100 text messages per day had significantly higher sexual risk scores (beta=1.008, P<.001) but significantly larger declines in sexual risk scores for higher levels of parental monitoring (beta=-.237, P=.009).

Conclusions: Although adolescents exchange SMS at high rates, parental monitoring remains vital to parent-child relationships and can moderate SMS frequency and sexual risk behaviors, despite parental influence diminishing and peer pressure and social influences increasing during adolescence.

Keywords: adolescent; parent-child relations; sexual behavior; social media; text messaging.

©Megan Landry, Monique Turner, Amita Vyas, Susan Wood. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 19.05.2017.