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Original article
Trends in Youth Reports of Sexual Solicitations, Harassment andUnwanted Exposure to Pornography on the Internet
Kimberly J. Mitchell, Ph.D.,* Janis Wolak, J.D., and David Finkelhor, Ph.D.
Crimes against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire
Manuscript received March 3, 2006; manuscript accepted May 26, 2006
Abstract Purpose:
This study was designed to track trends in reports of unwanted sexual solicitations,harassment, and unwanted exposure to pornography via the Internet between 2000 and 2005 acrossvarious demographic sub-groups of youth.
Methods:
Cross-sectional data was collected in two equivalent national telephone surveys of 1500Internet users, ages 10 through 17 years. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to determinewhether the percentage of youth reporting specific unwanted Internet experiences had changed in2005, as compared with 2000.
Results:
The overall incidence and 5-year trends of reporting unwanted sexual solicitations,harassment, and unwanted exposure to pornography varied by age, gender, race, and householdincome. In particular, the decline in the percentage of youth reporting sexual solicitations wasapparent for both boys and girls, all age groups, but not among minority youth and those living inless affluent households. The increase in harassment among particular sub-groups of youth waslargely explained by increases in amount of Internet use over the past five years. The increase inunwanted exposure to pornography was particularly apparent among 10- to 12-year-olds, 16- to17-year-olds, boys, and White, non-Hispanic youth.
Conclusions:
The decline in the percentage of youth reporting sexual solicitations may be theeffect of education and law enforcement activity on this issue in the intervening years. Targetedprevention efforts for minority youth and those living in less affluent households need to bedeveloped. The rise in unwanted pornography exposure may reflect technological changes such asdigital photography, faster Internet connections and computer storage capacities, as well as the moreaggressive marketing strategies of pornography merchants. © 2007 Society for Adolescent Medi-cine. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Trends; Internet; Sexual solicitation; Harassment; Pornography; Youth
The Internet has rapidly become an increasingly centralelement in the lives of children and adolescents. It hasaffected how youth conduct their social lives, pursue theireducations and entertain themselves. The benefits of Inter-net technology have been widely touted, but there has alsobeen concern about potential harms associated with Internetuse. Have the potential harms to youth on the Internet beenincreasing? On the one hand, one might expect that as youthuse the Internet environment more frequently and inten-sively, exposure to perils in that environment would inex-orably rise. The increasing media attention to Internet dan-gers certainly conveys the impression of a growing menace[1–3].On the other hand, the dangers of new technologiesare sometimes exaggerated. It may be that as youth growmore familiar and educated about the Internet and its prob-lems, they become less vulnerable. The recent decade hasalso been one that has seen rather dramatic declines in avariety of youth risk activities and experiences, for example,teen pregnancy and sexual intercourse[4,5],violent offend- ing and victimization[6–8],certain types of drug usage and
*Address correspondence to: Dr. Kimberly J. Mitchell, Crimes againstChildren Research Center, University of New Hampshire, 10 West EdgeDrive, Ste. 106, Durham, NH 03824-3586.E-mail address: kimberly.mitchell@unh.eduJournal of Adolescent Health 40 (2007) 116–1261054-139X/07/$ – see front matter © 2007 Society for Adolescent Medicine. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2006.05.021
 
smoking[5],and sexual and physical abuse[9,10].Some of  this moderation may be the effect of greater education andawareness. Perhaps Internet dangers have been moderatingas well. This study looks at three particular Internet perils:unwanted sexual solicitations, harassment and unwantedexposure to online pornography and documents trends be-tween 2000 and 2005 across different demographic sub-groups of youth.
Youth Internet use
Since Internet usage is relatively new and growing, somegroups of youth have had more experience and exposure tothis medium, its dangers and to awareness about its intrica-cies. Such differential experience may have an impact onvulnerability. Specifically, differences in usage and experi-ence have been documented based on youth age[11,12],race and ethnicity, annual household income, and gender[11,13].As children grow older, their exposure to the In-ternet increases[11,12].Internet use is higher among White youth than among Black youth and Hispanic youth[13].Youth living in households with higher family incomes aremore likely to use the Internet than those in lower incomehouseholds[11,13].Similar numbers of girls and boys use the Internet, however, older teenage girls (ages 15–17 years)use the Internet for communication and information-seekingmuch more than younger girls and teenage boys of any age[11].
Changes in Internet use and unwanted Internet experiences
Although the Internet provides a wealth of informationand opportunities to youth, as with any other aspect of theirlives, there are potential risks and dangers. National studieshave shown that youth can meet dangerous people online,be exposed to a large variety of sexual and violent material,and fall victim to harassment and bullying[14–17].The First and Second Youth Internet Safety Surveys (YISS-1and YISS-2) examined the prevalence of unwanted sexualsolicitations, harassment, and unwanted exposure to por-nography in two independent samples of Internet users(ages 10–17 years); conducted in Year 2000 and Year 2005,respectively[14,18].YISS-2 findings revealed the percent- age of Internet-using youth reporting sexual solicitationssignificantly decreased, from 19% to 13%[18].At the same time, the number of youth reporting online harassment sig-nificantly increased, from 6% to 9%, and the number re-porting unwanted exposure to pornography significantly in-creased, from 25% to 34%. However, these percentagesrepresent all Internet-using youth and do not take into ac-count differences among demographic sub-groups. The cur-rent article will expand on these findings by examiningthese changes among different demographic sub-groups,including youth of various ages, gender, race and ethnicity,and annual household income while adjusting for otherdemographic characteristics, amount and locations of Inter-net use.
Methods
 Data source sampling method 
YISS-1 and YISS-2 were telephone surveys of two in-dependent national samples of 1500 Internet users, ages 10to 17 years, and a parent or guardian, conducted 5 yearsapart. Both studies were approved and supervised by theUniversity of New Hampshire Institutional Review Boardand conformed to the rules mandated for research projectsfunded by the U.S. Department of Justice. In both studies,the sample size of 1500 was predetermined based upon amaximum expected sampling error of 
2.5% at the .05significance level.
YISS-1 sampling
The sample for the YISS-1 was a national sample of households with telephones drawn by random digit dialing(RDD). The sampling was done in conjunction with theSecond National Incidence Study of Missing, Abducted,Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 2)[19],conducted by the Institute for Survey Research at TempleUniversity in 1999. Households identified as having a childbetween 9 and 17 years of age during the NISMART 2screening process were flagged for possible YISS-1 selec-tion. In total, 6594 phone numbers were forwarded toYISS-1 interviewers. Interviewers dialed those numbers toidentify households with children ages 10 through 17 yearswho had used the Internet at least once a month for the pastsix months. Interviewers made successful contact with 3446households by the end of the survey period. Seventy-fivepercent (n
2575) of the households contacted completedthe eligibility screener, and 72% (n
1857) were identifiedas eligible for YISS-1 participation. The response rate forYISS-1 was .57 using the American Association of PublicOpinion Research (AAPOR) Response Rate 4, which allo-cates cases of unknown eligibility, but also includes partialinterviews[20].The interviews for YISS-1 took place be- tween August 1999 and February 2000.
YISS-2 sampling
Like the YISS-1 sample, the sample for YISS-2 wasdrawn from a national sample of households with tele-phones developed by RDD. The main difference betweenYISS-1 and YISS-2 was that YISS-2 screening for age-eligible children who met the Internet usage criteria wasdone in one screening, rather than the two separate screen-ings in YISS-1. YISS-2 interviewers dialed a total of 54,842RDD numbers to identify households with children ages 10through 17 years who had used the Internet at least once amonth for the past 6 months. Successful contact was madewith 49% of these numbers (n
26,853). Of the households
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K.J. Mitchell et al. / Journal of Adolescent Health 40 (2007) 116–126 
 
that were contacted, 53% (n
14,316) completed the eli-gibility screener. Of the 14,316 households completing theeligibility screener, 28% (n
3956) were eligible for par-ticipation in YISS-2 interviews. The response rate fromYISS-2 was .45, also using AAPOR Response Rate 4[20].The interviews for YISS-2 took place between March 2005and June 2005.
 Methods in YISS-1 and YISS-2 data collection
Schulman, Ronca, and Bucuvalas, Inc., a national surveyresearch firm, conducted the screening and telephone inter-views for both studies. Upon reaching a household, inter-viewers spoke with an adult and determined whether therewas an eligible child in the household. Eligible childrenwere aged 10 through 17 years who had used the Internet atleast once a month for the past 6 months from any location.Interviewers then asked to speak with the parent or guardianwho was most familiar with that child’s Internet use andafter receiving informed consent, asked them a series of questions about their child’s Internet use. At the close of theparent survey, the interviewer asked for permission to in-terview the child. Interviewers told parents the youth inter-view would be confidential, include questions about “sexualmaterial your child may have seen,” and that youth wouldreceive $10 for participating. In households with more thanone eligible youth, the one who used the Internet the mostoften was chosen. After receiving parental permission, in-terviewers spoke with the child and asked for permission toconduct an interview. Interviewers assured youth that theiranswers would be confidential; they could skip any questionthey did not want to answer and end the interview at anytime. Youth interviews were scheduled at their convenienceand at times when they were able to talk freely and confi-dentially. Youth participants were mailed $10 checks aftercompleting the survey. The average youth interview lasted30 minutes and the average parent interview lasted 10 min-utes.
Study populations
The demographic characteristics of the YISS-1 andYISS-2 samples were similar with approximately equalnumbers of boys and girls; slightly over one-third were ages10–13 years with approximately 65% ages 14 to 17 years;most were White, non-Hispanic (73% and 71%, respec-tively); and over half lived with both biological parents(63% and 62%, respectively) (Table 1). The samples dif- fered slightly on two characteristics. In 2005, more youthlived with single, never-married parents and more lived inhouseholds with incomes of more than $75,000. The sam-ples also differed on the amount and locations of Internetuse. Multivariate analyses controlled for all demographicand Internet use characteristics included inTable 1.
 MeasuresUnwanted Internet experiencesUnwanted sexual solicitations
were defined as requeststo engage in sexual activities or sexual talk or to givepersonal sexual information that were unwanted or, whetherwanted or not, made by an adult (aged 18 years or older).The prevalence rate for sexual solicitation was estimatedbased on endorsement of one or more of three screenerquestions: 1) “In the past year, did anyone on the Internetask you for sexual information about yourself when you didnot want to answer such questions? I mean very personalquestions, like what your body looks like or sexual thingsyou have done?,” 2) “In the past year, did anyone on theInternet ever try to get you to talk online about sex whenyou did not want to?,” and 3) “In the past year, did anyoneon the Internet ever ask you to do something sexual that youdid not want to do?” Additionally, youth who said they hadan online sexual relationship with an adult were included tocapture possible statutory sex crimes (n
8; all fromYISS-2). Online relationships were considered sexual if youth responded positively to the question: “Was this rela-tionship sexual in any way?” This question was only askedof youth who had met this person face-to-face so the age of the solicitor was apparent. We also defined a subgroup of 
aggressive sexual solicitations
, in which solicitors at-tempted or made offline contact with youth through regularmail, by telephone, or in person.
 Harassment 
was defined as threats or other offensivebehavior (not sexual solicitation) sent online to youth orposted online about youth for others to see. The prevalencerate for harassment was estimated based on endorsement of at least one of two screener questions: 1) “In the past year,did anyone ever use the Internet to threaten or embarrassyou by posting or sending messages about you for otherpeople to see?” and 2) “In the past year, did you ever feelworried or threatened because someone was bothering orharassing you online?.”
Unwanted exposure to pornography
was defined as be-ing exposed to pictures of naked people or people havingsex without seeking or expecting such pictures, when doingonline searches, surfing the web, opening e-mail or instantmessages or links in messages. The prevalence rate forunwanted exposure to pornography was estimated based onendorsement of at least one of two screener questions: 1) “Inthe past year when you were doing an online search orsurfing the web, did you ever find yourself in a web site thatshowed pictures of naked people or of people having sexwhen you did not want to be in that kind of site?” and 2) “Inthe past year, did you ever open an e-mail or instant mes-sage or a link in a message that showed you actual picturesof naked people or people having sex that you did notwant?.”Finally, we identified subgroups of youth who reported
distressing solicitations, harassment, or exposure to por-
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