One longitudinal study found that adolescent girls who engaged in sexualized self-presentation on social networking sites had a higher willingness to engage in sexting. Therefore, they may also be more likely to engage in the posting of sexualized material. Īdolescents are frequently exposed to sexualized messages and images, and are very sensitive about their appearance, because of their developmental stage during which peer and romantic relationships become increasingly important. These self-sexualized images were more likely to receive likes and additional followers. Poses that were more frequently observed in the sexualized self-presentation of young adult women were canting (e.g., as bending of the head/body as a sign of appeasement) and loss of control (e.g., as emotional expression of psychological disengagement). Butkowski, Dixon, Weeks and Smith found that young adult women commonly employ a variety of stereotypical gender displays in their Instagram selfies. A content-analysis of profile pictures on a chat platform showed that 51.7% of adolescents posted a seductive picture, and that 20.4% posted an image in revealing clothing (when stratified by gender 39.2% of girls had posted an image in revealing clothing as opposed to 1.3% of boys). Engaging in sexualized self-presentation appears to be common among adolescents. Given their focus on visual content, social media applications such as Instagram have been named as platforms that adolescents can use for sexualized self-presentation, which, based on the conceptualization of van Oosten, includes images in which someone is scarcely dressed, has a sexy gaze, or in which sexual willingness is suggested. In order to get a deeper understanding of adolescents’ engagement in sexualized self-presentation on Instagram, our study uses the prototype willingness model (PWM). In this study, we focus on how teenagers can use the social media platform to engage in sexual forms of self-presentation. It was found that teenagers use the social media platform in order to improve their peer popularity and to express their creativity. One study has found that validation and reassurance seeking are one of the main motives for why adolescents use Instagram. From a developmental perspective, social media platforms allow teenagers to experiment with their identities, online personas, and their looks, as they allow receiving feedback from others through comments and likes. Similar to other social networking platforms, Instagram is used by adolescents for social interaction, such as staying in touch with friends and making new connections. Instagram solicits feedback from others, by allowing users to like the content and post comments under images, which can be perceived by its users as measures of success and validation. The content can either be permanently posted on the timeline or can be published as temporary posts that stay up for a limited amount of time (i.e., Instagram stories). Instagram is a social networking application that allows users to share images and videos of themselves. In Belgium, where the current study was conducted, around 86% of youth report using Instagram on a weekly basis in 2019. In the United States, 72% of youth are active users of the platform. One of the social media applications that has gained a lot of popularity over the recent years is Instagram. Most teenagers use them daily or almost all the time. Additionally, in Europe, smartphones have become the preferred medium for online communication. Around 95% of US teenagers own a smartphone and 45% are almost permanently online. The implications for education and practice are discussed.Īdolescents are enthusiastic social media users. There were also significant associations between perceived similarity, prototype favorability and the willingness to engage in sexualized self-presentation on Instagram. The perceived norms of adolescents’ parents were not significantly related to the behaviors. ![]() The models showed that peer norms and willingness and attitudes were significantly associated with posting intention. The results show that older adolescents and girls were more likely to post images of themselves on Instagram. The study was conducted among 2626 students ( n = 1530 58.4% girls) between the ages of 14 and 21 ( M = 16.14 SD = 1.02) in 10 secondary schools in the Dutch-speaking community in Belgium. ![]() Given that adolescents are highly influenced by peer perceptions, this study uses the prototype willingness model to assess how teenagers’ perceptions of others could influence their posting behaviors. These behaviors could be a first step towards sexting. Some adolescents use social media platforms, such as Instagram, for sexualized self-presentation, which includes posting images in which someone is scarcely dressed, has a sexy gaze or in which sexual willingness is suggested.
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