SEATTLE, WA -- Teens talk sex & drugs on MySpace.
A study of 500 public MySpace profiles, created by owners who said they were 18, finds that 54% mentioned risky behaviors such as sex, drugs or alcohol use, and violence.
Researchers suggest that social networking sites might be a new way to detect and reach out to teens engaging in risky behaviors. However, the study had a pretty broad definition of what it considered “sexual content” – everything from disclosures of personal sexual behavior to small images Playboy bunnies.
Teens who had pictures of beer bottles on their site were included in the “substance use” category, and those who had images from violent movies such as “Scarface” were included in the “violent behavior” category.
However, in a second report on 190 MySpace profiles of youths 18-20 years old, the researchers found that a single warning email from a profile called “Dr. Meg” could reduce the amount of sex & drug references that teens had on their sites. This study was reported in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
