Prevalence and Common Themes of Sexual Posts on High School Facebook Confession Pages
Location
CSU Ballroom
Start Date
20-4-2015 2:00 PM
End Date
20-4-2015 3:30 PM
Student's Major
Psychology
Student's College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mentor's Name
Kathy Bertsch
Mentor's Email Address
kathy.bertsch@mnsu.edu
Mentor's Department
Psychology
Mentor's College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Second Mentor's Name
Rachel Burlet
Second Mentor's Department
Psychology
Second Mentor's College
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Description
Facebook high school confession pages are places where students can anonymously post their thoughts and opinions to be viewed by others. The nature of anonymous social media is a cause of concern as it creates an open forum free from personal identity for teens to voice their interests and opinions, which are often of a sexual nature. While these concerns have been highlighted in media coverage and survey research, little research has been done to formally examine the content of these pages. The purpose of this study is to examine both the prevalence and nature of sexual posts on these pages. An archival data set gathered from the posts on 10 U.S. high school confession pages over a two-month period was used for analysis in this study (Bertsch, Burlet and Conrad(2014)). Posts (N=1559) were coded as either containing sexual language or not. Posts that were found to have sexual content were then classified as being either about the author’s sexuality, the sexuality of somebody other than the author, the sexuality of both the author and another party, or as using sexual language solely as profanity. Posts with terms used to refer to sexual orientation were also examined to determine if these terms were being used correctly. Results of this study will give an indication as to how prevalent sexual posts are on anonymous social media as well as the degree to which sexual harassment/sexual bullying is occurring on teen focused anonymous social media.
Prevalence and Common Themes of Sexual Posts on High School Facebook Confession Pages
CSU Ballroom
Facebook high school confession pages are places where students can anonymously post their thoughts and opinions to be viewed by others. The nature of anonymous social media is a cause of concern as it creates an open forum free from personal identity for teens to voice their interests and opinions, which are often of a sexual nature. While these concerns have been highlighted in media coverage and survey research, little research has been done to formally examine the content of these pages. The purpose of this study is to examine both the prevalence and nature of sexual posts on these pages. An archival data set gathered from the posts on 10 U.S. high school confession pages over a two-month period was used for analysis in this study (Bertsch, Burlet and Conrad(2014)). Posts (N=1559) were coded as either containing sexual language or not. Posts that were found to have sexual content were then classified as being either about the author’s sexuality, the sexuality of somebody other than the author, the sexuality of both the author and another party, or as using sexual language solely as profanity. Posts with terms used to refer to sexual orientation were also examined to determine if these terms were being used correctly. Results of this study will give an indication as to how prevalent sexual posts are on anonymous social media as well as the degree to which sexual harassment/sexual bullying is occurring on teen focused anonymous social media.
Recommended Citation
Fast, Christopher. "Prevalence and Common Themes of Sexual Posts on High School Facebook Confession Pages." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 20, 2015.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2015/poster_session_B/36
