Sexting and college, they go together like carnal and knowledge. But a recent survey from the University of Rhode Island has put some numbers on how widespread it is. And the answer is: w i d e.
Seventy-eight percent of students in the survey say they've received sexually suggestive messages and 56% say they have received intimate images. Two thirds of the students said they sent salacious messages. Before we call a national epidemic of Weiner -itis, we should note that 73% of texts were sent to a romantic partner. Almost like a romantic old love-letter, but shorter and with more emoticons.
And, it seems, with more staying power. Almost a fifth of the people who received the racy messages then forwarded them onto somebody else. And 10% of all the explicit messages sent were relayed without permission from the original author. (Those statistics should be put on a label and stuck on cellphones everywhere.)
"At the age of most college students, people are filtering through relationships at a faster rate," said one of the study authors Tiffani Kisler. "People want to feel a sense of belonging so they are sharing more of themselves with people they are still getting to know. Once they click the send button, they don't know where else a message will end up."
The study sample was small (200) and limited to Rhode Island students, but the issue of younger people sending explicit images and messages via cell-phone is increasingly worrying. There have been several high-profile cases recently in which a forwarded sext has made life misery for the original composer of the message. It has also left those forwarding the message facing child pornography charges.
And in Rhode Island, where the participants in this study live, Governor Lincoln Chafee recently signed a bill that outlaws sexting by minors. Since some of these college students are 17, and with friends in high school to whom a salacious message might be sent, they could be in for a rude shock—and not just from the text.
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