Irish teenagers are among the most prolific in the EU for “sexting”, the practice of sending sexually explicit text messages and images, a conference taking place at Dublin City University will hear today.

Dr Sheri Bauman, professor of counselling at the University of Arizona and an expert in cyberbullying, will present research showing some adolescents regard sexting as a “normal” part of growing up.

Negatives

She will reference a survey of pupils from 300 Irish secondary schools showing sexting was most frequent among 14 to 17-year-olds, with more than one in four saying they had sent such messages. Irish teenagers emerged as the fourth most prolific “sexters” in the EU.

Dr James O’Higgins Norman, director of the Anti-Bullying Research Centre, said one of the reasons why Irish youths score so high in terms of sexting is related to “a lack of a coherent relationships and sexualities education (RSE) programme in schools”.

He said it was estimated up to 50 per cent of schools in Ireland do not deliver appropriate RSE and when it was delivered it could be formal and focused too much on disease, crisis pregnancy and other negatives “instead of emotions and other complexities related to sex”.

Risk-taking

The Anti-Bullying Research Centre Conference will be told teenagers who scored highly on the spectrum of sensation-seeking and risk-taking were more likely to take part in sexting, as were boys from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Dr Bauman said when images were shared without consent it became cyberbullying, with a significant impact on victims.