Czech teens’ experiences with sexting on Instagram

Abstract

The text focuses on dangerous phenomena in communication via online platforms. It defines the key terms for this area and informs about the selected research conducted in the Czech Republic. In our own research, we focused on the issue of teenage sexting on a specific communication platform - Instagram. This platform is very popular among Czech teenagers, as it is worldwide. The platform very often ranks among the top 3 most popular platforms, it allows sending and sharing both text and graphic messages - pictures, gifs and video sequences. In 2021, we conducted an online research survey among nearly 3,500 respondents aged 15 - 20. We were interested in whether and to what extent the respondents have experienced sexting, what is the ratio of male to female recipients of sexting or sexual content, who is the most frequent sender of sexting content etc. We were also interested in the topic of safety in social networks. The results of the survey then show a greater need to promote information literacy, computational thinking and safe behavior on social networks as well as safe use of ICT.