IT'S KIND OF AN EXCITING STORY : The role of the Internet in adolescent sexual development

This dissertation investigated how sex-related online behaviors shape sexual developmental processes in adolescence, and how Internet use and online behaviors are embedded in other, offline influencing systems in young people's lives.The overarching aims of the eight empirical studies, which utilized a developmental, contextual, and multi-method perspective, were to: (1) Establish the prevalence and development of different sex-related online behaviors in adolescence, as well as their longitudinal associations with adolescents' sexual cognitions, emotions, and behaviors; (2) Identify mechanisms underlying effects of sex-related Internet use, and individual differences in patterns of sex-related online behaviors and the factors that predict these differences; (3) Gain more in-depth insight into the content adolescents are exposed to, create, and distribute when engaging in sex-related online behaviors, as well as their own motives, perceptions, and reflections regarding such content and behaviors. The results of this dissertation suggest that, for the general adolescent population, engagement in most sex-related online behaviors (use of sexually explicit Internet material, sexual information seeking, and cybersex) is not widespread or excessive. An exception to the generally low engagement in these behaviors is adolescents’ use of social networking sites. This highly popular social activity is not explicitly sexual in genre, yet may function as an important context for adolescents to form and evaluate conceptions of sexuality, engage in sexual communication, and explore and portray their own sexual identity. Although mean engagement in sex-related online behaviors was found to be less prevalent than often assumed or feared, the studies in this dissertation confirm theoretical assumptions by showing that sex-related online behaviors have the potential to shape adolescents’ sexual cognitions, behaviors, and emotions over time. Higher levels of engagement in sex-related online behaviors were predictive of poorer body and sexual self-perceptions and (indirectly) increases in experience with sexual behavior. Moreover, boys’ use of sexually explicit Internet material predicted increases in their permissive sexual attitudes. Furthermore, this dissertation highlights that sex-related online behaviors and their effects on sexual developmental processes are intertwined with processes in the self, parent and peer domains. For example, it was found that adolescents' sex-related behaviors (i.e., use of sexually explicit Internet material and social networking sites) predicted increased perceptions that sexual behavior is common and accepted among peers, which in turn predicted increases in their own experience with sexual behavior. Moreover, the studies in this dissertation showed that there is a large congruency between adolescents’ own dispositions (e.g., sexual beliefs, psychological well-being), developmental interests (e.g., sexual interest), and social setting (e.g., Internet-specific parenting) on the one hand and their patterns of sex-related Internet use on the other hand. Moreover, gender played an important role both in adolescents’ patterns of engagement in sex-related online behaviors and the effects that these behaviors had on them. The findings in this dissertation offer a valuable contribution to the existing theory and knowledge about the role of Internet in adolescent sexual development. Moreover, they contain relevant implications for educational and parental strategies that aim to promote healthy and positive sexual development during adolescence