Adolescents and the Internet: Carrying out Sexual Development Tasks in the Digital World
Annunziata Rizzi, Tonino Cantelmi
During adolescence, the internet has become a fundamental environment for carrying out developmental tasks. Online sexual explorations in adolescence reflect a central task and internet activities can be considered an integral part of development. This study investigated the relationship between the use of social networks, the use of the internet to view sites with sexual content, the sending and receiving of sexts and sexual development tasks such as «body acceptance» and «integration of sexual drives». The results of the study confirm previous findings, showing that as time spent on social networks increases, acceptance of the body tends to decrease. Furthermore, the time spent visiting sexual content sites is positively related to the developmental task connected to the integration of drives and, in a very weak way, also to body acceptance. Finally, we found a positive correlation between sending your own intimate images or videos, seeing intimate photographs/videos of others, and integrating sexual urges. Therefore, the use of sexual material appears to foster the physiological cognitive and exploratory needs of sexuality. The data presented in this study profitably fit into the line of studies that connects the use of the internet to adolescent development.
Keywords
Developmental tasks in adolescence on the internet, Sexual identity construction, Sexually explicit internet material, Internet sexuality, Sexting.
