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Sexual exploration is a natural part of adolescent development; yet, unmediated internet access has enabled teens to engage in a wider variety of potentially riskier sexual interactions than previous generations, from normatively appropriate sexual interactions to sexually abusive situations. Teens have turned to online peer support platforms to disclose and seek support about these experiences. Therefore, we analyzed posts (N=45,955) made by adolescents (ages 13--17) on an online peer support platform to deeply examine their online sexual risk experiences. By applying a mixed methods approach, we 1) accurately (average of AUC = 0.90) identified posts that contained teen disclosures about online sexual risk experiences and classified the posts based on level of consent (i.e., consensual, non-consensual, sexual abuse) and relationship type (i.e., stranger, dating/friend, family) between the teen and the person in which they shared the sexual experience, 2) detected statistically significant differences in the proportions of posts based on these dimensions, and 3) further unpacked the nuance in how these online sexual risk experiences were typically characterized in the posts. Teens were significantly more likely to engage in consensual sexting with friends/dating partners; unwanted solicitations were more likely from strangers and sexual abuse was more likely when a family member was involved. We contribute to the HCI and CSCW literature around youth online sexual risk experiences by moving beyond the false dichotomy of "safe" versus "risky". Our work provides a deeper understanding of technology-mediated adolescent sexual behaviors from the perspectives of sexual well-being, risk detection, and the prevention of online sexual violence toward youth.
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This content will become publicly available on November 7, 2025
Teen Talk: The Good, the Bad, and the Neutral of Adolescent Social Media Use
The debate on whether social media has a net positive or negative effect on youth is ongoing. Therefore, we conducted a thematic analysis on 2,061 posts made by 1,038 adolescents aged 15-17 on an online peer-support platform to investigate the ways in which these teens discussed popular social media platforms in their posts and to identify differences in their experiences across platforms. Our findings revealed four main emergent themes for the ways in which social media was discussed: 1) Sharing negative experiences or outcomes of social media use (58%, n = 1,095), 2) Attempts to connect with others (45%, n = 922), 3) Highlighting the positive side of social media use (20%, n = 409), and 4) Seeking information (20%, n = 491). Overall, while sharing about negative experiences was more prominent, teens also discussed balanced perspectives of connection-seeking, positive experiences, and information support on social media that should not be discounted. Moreover, we found statistical significance for how these experiences differed across social media platforms. For instance, teens were most likely to seek romantic relationships on Snapchat and self-promote on YouTube. Meanwhile, Instagram was mentioned most frequently for body shaming, and Facebook was the most commonly discussed platform for privacy violations (mostly from parents). The key takeaway from our study is that the benefits and drawbacks of teens' social media usage can co-exist and net effects (positive or negative) can vary across different teens across various contexts. As such, we advocate for mitigating the negative experiences and outcomes of social media use as voiced by teens, to improve, rather than limit or restrict, their overall social media experience. We do this by taking an affordance perspective that aims to promote the digital well-being and online safety of youth by design.
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- PAR ID:
- 10564909
- Publisher / Repository:
- Proceedings of ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- CSCW2
- ISSN:
- 2573-0142
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 35
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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