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What is digital abuse?

Digital dating abuse is abusive behavior that occurs between partners via text messages, social media, or related online media.

Cyberbullying Research Center founders Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin recently released their research paper entitled, “Digital Dating Abuse Among a National Sample of U.S. Youth” in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence to illuminate how dating violence is manifesting online.

According to this study, over the past year more than a quarter of teens, or 28.1 percent, have been a victim of some form of digital dating abuse.

How does a partner or significant other harm their victim?

Go through their device without their permission.

Keep them from using their device.

Steal their device.

Threaten them via text.

Post something publicly online to embarrass or threaten them.

Post private pictures of them without their permission.

And it's not only online abuse—35.9 percent of participants also said they’ve been a victim of at least one form of offline dating abuse such as being pushed, grabbed, shoved, hit, threatened physically, called names, or being prevented from doing something they wanted to do.

When it comes to , almost one-third of boys (32.3 percent) were likely to have experienced digital dating abuse compared to just less than a quarter of girls (23.6 percent).

Teens, Sexting, and

In an age where sending nudes and sexting has become normalized, the current research finds that participants who had sent a “sext” were five times more likely to be targeted for online relationship abuse than teens who hadn’t sexted.

There are studies that continue to reveal that cyberbullying, online harassment and other forms of cyber-abuse can contribute to teen depression. Students who reported depressive symptoms were about four times as likely to have experienced digital dating abuse.

Being an Educated Parent

is key to having safer and healthier teens both online and offline. In today's times of evolving technology, it's important that we take an interest in our young people's digital lives. We may never be as cyber-savvy as they are, but they will always need our .