SEXTING AND CYBERBULLYING ON THE RISE AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE WITH THE PANDEMIC

The recent pandemic has forced millions of teenagers indoors, with brief flashes of freedom and socialization, and the repercussions can now be observed by comparing the habits of today’s young people with those of their peers in the pre-COVID era. The analysis was conducted by a study by the Foresta Onlus Foundation of Padua, directed by Professor Carlo Foresta, on more than 5,000 young people attending high school in Veneto, Campania and Puglia, as part of the DiGitPro project.

After collecting the data with questionnaires specially processed anonymously, the researchers aggregated and processed them and discovered greater uncertainty about sexual orientation in young people.

New family life habits have led young people to rediscover their sexuality on the internet: more than twice as many now rely on dating sites, while pornography is strongly emerging as a new habit in girls. The arrival of sexuality on the web among young people has led both sexes to practice much more sexting and cybersex, which have doubled in the last year. On the other hand, the massive use of the internet also for the discovery of one’s sexuality has resulted in a greater frequency of cyberbullying, which affects more than 40% of the girls and 25% of the boys surveyed.

The combination of all these changes has made young people much more fragile. In particular, males are the weaker sex during the pandemic, with one in four saying they suffer from loneliness (in 2018-2019 it was only one in eight) while 19% say they are dissatisfied with their lives, compared to only 10% in the years before the pandemic. On the other hand, the results of the study showed a drastic drop in the consumption of alcohol and drugs (-40% and -25% compared to two years ago). 

An apparently healthier lifestyle emerges, even in terms of food, with the majority of young people declaring that they follow a Mediterranean diet, as a result of a substantial change in lifestyles. However, we should not forget the impact of distance learning and lockdown on the physical activity of adolescents, who are necessarily much more sedentary, so much so that less than 30% carry out regular extracurricular physical activity, compared to 50% in past years.

“The pandemic has erased an important part of children’s sociality,” comments Professor Carlo Foresta. “It becomes more difficult to get to know peers, fall in love and experience sexuality, which has therefore spilled over into the only social tool available to them: the internet. Here, however, the risks deriving from sharing one’s intimacy on the web increase, as demonstrated by the very high percentage of cyberbullying acts. However, these telematic tools represent only a semblance of sociality, which cannot compensate for the real dynamics of social relationships that develop in the school environment in presence. The resulting greater loneliness has perhaps opened up ample space for self-reflection in young people, bringing to the surface greater uncertainty in their sexual orientation. On the other hand, while it is true that risky behaviours such as smoking and alcohol have decreased, the impact of the lockdown on physical activity and therefore on health, especially in the long term, should not be ignored”.

(Source: Forest Foundation)