NCJ Number
247532
Date Published
February 2014
Length
57 pages
Annotation
This bulletin summarizes findings from the Third Youth Internet Safety Survey (YISS-3), with attention to youth reports of unwanted sexual solicitations, online harassment, unwanted exposure to sexual material, and "sexting."
Abstract
The survey found that unwanted sexual solicitations continued to decline among youth, from 19 percent in 2000 to 13 percent in 2005, and to 11 percent in 2010. Unwanted online experiences continue to involve mainly older kids ages 13-17; the youngest group ages 10-12, continues to report few of these experiences. The types of unwanted online experiences examined were unwanted sexual solicitations, harassment, and unwanted exposure to sexual material. The "sexting" of explicit sexual images involves a small percentage of youth, but this is still a large number of respondents. Reporting unwanted online experiences to school authorities remains low, but is increasing slowly. Friends are still the most likely to be told about these incidents. "Internet use" was defined as using the Internet at least once a month for the past 6 months at home, school, a friend's home, a library, a cell phone, or some other location. The survey involved telephone interviews with unique nationally representative samples of young Internet users, ages 10 through 17; 1,560 youth were interviewed in YISS-3. Figures, tables, and references