What can parents do?

In this tech-savvy world, parenting a tween or a teen is not an easy task. Peers have the most powerful influence on the habits of a child and as the study shows, peers pressure is the key factor that drives tweens and teens to watch porn excessively. Parents should teach their kids how to resist peer pressure in order to combat the problem.

Numerous studies have investigated how tweens and kids in their early teens engage in sexting or start watching pornography but few have answered the question as to why this happens. In a recent research by Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, University of Leuven, Belgium, researchers blame peer pressure for sexting practices and other forms of mobile pornography despite the possible consequences.

Peer group dynamics has a powerful impact on teens and their behavior, says new research. Teen and tween sexting and other forms of mobile pornography are on the rise because of peer pressure. Perceived popularity among peers is also a major factor as far as teen sexting and watching pornography is concerned. Teens tend to ignore the possible impacts that excessive viewing of porn can have.

Surprisingly, this kind of behavior among teens and tweens is becoming increasingly common but it gets little or no attention from the school administration and public opinion leaders. Sex education in schools does not educate students about how and when it is safe to watch porn but institutions are barely paying attention to the fact that peer pressure ups teens and tweens watching porn.

What the study was about?

The study draws results form a large group of a quantitative sample. They study examines four key factors that impact teen porn watching habits. They are:

• Same-sex popularity
• Other-sex popularity
• Perceived peer pressure
• Need for popularity

All these factors, directly or indirectly, have an effect on teen and tween sexting and their mobile pornography habits.

Interestingly, the study reveals that for boys, the greater motivational drive to engage in these practices is oftentimes to achieve higher popularity among both boys and girls. This notion is self-perceived but teens want to be popular and liked among their peers. Girls who reported having sent a sext indicated perceiving themselves as more popular among boys, but less popular among girls. Moreover, mobile porn use was cited exclusively among male students and particularly those who have experienced a lot of peer pressure.

One of the earlier studies talked about consumption of magazine and video pornography in male peer groups. The results revealed that downloading and exchanging mobile porn may be at least as much about proving one's 'manliness' to others as it is about achieving sexual arousal.

The results of this study suggest that, in the eyes of teenagers, sexting and mobile porn use do bring short-term benefits in terms of enhancing popularity in the peer group that may in fact outweigh potential long-term risks associated with these behaviors.