Teen Sexting – How Common Is It?

Today’s teens are probably a lot more familiar with the concept of sexting than you are, but if they’re like most teens, they aren’t actually doing it themselves.

Sexting = Sending sexually provocative texts, usually with photos or video, from a mobile phone to another mobile phone or email address.

How Common Is Teen Sexting?

A 2009 national survey¹ of 12 to 17 year olds conducted by the Pew Research Center reveals that:

1. Only 4% of teens have sent a nude or nearly nude picture of themselves to another person
   
2. 15% of teens have received, either first hand or second hand, a nude or nearly nude picture from another person (by the age of 17 this number climbs to 30%)
   

The three most common scenarios for teen sexting are sexts between people in a romantic relationship, sexts between people where one person desires to initiate a romantic relationship and sexts between two people in a romantic relationship that get forwarded to others.