EMPIRICAL EVALUATION OF SEXTING AND ROUTINE ACTIVITIES OF ADOLESCENTS IN COLOMBIA

Abstract

This paper was as goal to know the relation between Sexting self-revealed by 1,364 high school students from Colombia and the Routine Activities Theory. The Sexting and Routine Activities scales are reliable (Alpha> 0.80) and valid, according to the judge of experts. The construct validity of the Sexting scale was determined through Exploratory Factorial Analysis, we found two factors that jointly explain 78.196% of the variance, called Sexting behaviors and Sexting consequences. The results showed that, at least once, students have sent or forwarded (15%) or received (24.8%) photos or videos with explicit sexual content. 29.4% of the young people exhibited Sexting behaviors. Women have a greater tendency to Sexting and the probability of participating in this behavior increases as their degree of study increases. Finally, the binary logistic regression showed that the online adequate objective dimension of the Routine Activities Theory, predicts both Behaviors and Consequences of Sexting, increasing the probability of their occurrence. To prevent Sexting, young people should be made aware of the risks of establishing friendships with strangers through the Internet, posting photos or videos or saving personal information on their cell phone or tablet, indicators of the predictor variable.