Can the type of music that a teen listens to have an effect on their sexting behaviors? A study published in Computers in Human Behavior suggests that listening to sexually explicit music may bolster sexting habits for adolescent boys.
Sexualized language is extremely prevalent in many forms of popular music. Music is a widely used form of media and many people strongly identify with the kind of music they listen to. Adolescents are both especially vulnerable to social influence and increasingly likely to use music as a form of self-expression.
Due to these factors, sexual content in music can be linked to increases in certain sexual activities or attitudes for young teenagers. This relationship has not been studied for sexting behaviors, though sexting is a common form of sexual contact for adolescents. This study sought to bridge this gap in literature and better understand the relationship between sexually explicit lyrics and sexting.
For their study, Savannah L. Keenan-Kroff and colleagues utilized 278 adolescent cisgender participants living in Texas to serve as their sample. Data was collected at 3 different timepoints. The average age at wave 1 was 15 years old and the average age at wave 3 was 18 years old. Data was collected yearly. Participants were provided with BlackBerry phones that allowed for internet access and unlimited texting. They were encouraged to use these devices as their own personal cellphones.
Despite the monitoring aspect, the adolescents seemed to use the phones a lot and 90% reported having no discomfort about it. Participants were asked to list their top three favorite musical artists and researchers pulled the lyrics for each artist’s top 3 most popular songs to screen for sexual lyrics.
Sexual lyrics included any word or slang term for intimacy or sex, including sexual acts or body parts. Sexually objectifying lyrics were defined as any lyrics that refer to a woman as a sexual object. Sexting data was collected from the BlackBerry devices. Due to the sheer amount of data, 4 days were selected to be analyzed, two from the fall and two from the spring semesters.
Results showed that sexting behavior was more likely for boys who listened to increased sexual lyrics at time point 3, when they were approximately 18 years of age. There were no significant cross-sectional relationships found between sexting behaviors and listening to sexually objectifying lyrics. Boys listened to more music containing both sexually explicit and sexually objectifying lyrics than girls did throughout this study.
“Because both societal messages and identification with musical artists may create a greater susceptibility for boys, parents should consider monitoring their children’s texting and also talking with their children about societal expectations for sexuality,” the researchers wrote. “Additionally, while implicit, music can be considered a form of media that is consumed and consequently worthy of discussion for parents and their adolescent children.”
“Parents should be communicating with their children frequently, actively, and openly, not only about sexting, but also about sexuality and media,” they advised.
This study took important first steps into better understanding the relationship between teen music choices and sexting behavior. Despite this, there are limitations to acknowledge. Firstly, the teen texting data was collected in 2009 and it is possible that both texting and sexting behavior has been altered by the rise of smartphones. Additionally, lyrics were analyzed from the top songs from each top artist, rather than having the participants themselves pick the songs, leaving a possibility that they weren’t exposed to the same number of sexual lyrics as the study assumed.
“Although the study is not without limitations, it provides the first evidence that listening to sexual lyrics in music is associated with future sexting behavior among male adolescents. These results suggest that boys may be especially susceptible to lyrical messages regarding sexuality, which may be, in part, due to gendered sexual expectations,” the researchers concluded.
The study, “Associations between sexual music lyrics and sexting across adolescence“, was authored by Savannah L. Keenan-Kroff, Sarah M. Coyne, Jane Shawcroft, J. Andan Sheppard, Spencer L. James, Samuel E. Ehrenreich, and Marion Underwood.