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

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.