If you’ve been following the “sexting” trend through various news network over the last 12 months it likely seems that just about every teen on the face of the planet is engaging in acts of personal phone pornography but a new study says that simply isn’t the case.

According to the study published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics one in 10 children from the ages of 10 to 17 engage in the sending of sexually explicit images (10%) and only 1 in 100 (1%) send images of themselves and others that would be considered in violation of child pornography laws.

Researchers conducting the study interviewed 1,560 children from across the United States and according to author Janis Wolak:

“It only takes one or two cases to make people think this is very prevalent behavior,” and “This has been reported as if it were something that everyone was doing, not just in the teen population, but in the young adult population. It’s really not the case.”

Janis’ work at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire makes her an authority on the subject and the perfect person to show proof that the prevalence of sexting among underage pre-teen and teens is not as serious as researchers and news outlets in the past have led us to believe.

The research further reveals that 149 kids admitted to sending or receiving pornographic images in the last 12 months while just over 2 percent said the pictures were taken of their own bodies and 7.1 percent said they had received sexual images from someone else.

What may be most troubling about the trend is that 31 percent of those respondents who said they took sexual images said they did so while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The study does not say that sexting is not of concern, simple that media reports about the issue have been greatly exaggerated. I have to admit we’ve been guilty of rampant reporting on the issue at Inquisitr as can be witnessed here, here and here.

Are you surprised to learn that cases of sexting among younger phone users are not as rampant as originally believed?

[Image via ShutterStock.com]

Underage Kids Engage In Sexting, But Not As Much As Previously Thought [Study] is a post from: The Inquisitr

A recent large scale study has revealed that the most popular injectable contraception in southern Africa is leading to twice as many cases of HIV.

Published on Monday the research study found that women were twice as likely to become infected with HIV while men were also twice as likely to become infected compared to when they used no contraception at all.

According to the NY Times:

The findings potentially present an alarming quandary for women in Africa. Hundreds of thousands of them suffer injuries, bleeding, infections and even death in childbirth from unintended pregnancies. Finding affordable and convenient contraceptives is a pressing goal for international health authorities.

The study has found that injectable contraceptive drugs have biological properties that make both men and women more susceptible to H.I.V.

Speaking about injectable drugs Isobel Coleman, director of the women and foreign policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations said:

“The best contraception today is injectable hormonal contraception because you don’t need a doctor, it’s long-lasting, it enables women to control timing and spacing of birth without a lot of fuss and travel,” while adding, “If it is now proven that these contraceptions are helping spread the AIDS epidemic, we have a major health crisis on our hands.”

According to prescription numbers nearly 12 million women in Africa from the age of 15 to 49 use injectable hormone treatments, nearly 6 percent of all women in the country. In the United States 1.2 million women (3 percent of the population) use the treatments.

The study was led by researchers at the University of Washington and is fully published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases and included 3,800 couples in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia

According to the study:

The study found that women using hormonal contraception became infected at a rate of 6.61 per 100 person-years, compared with 3.78 for those not using that method. Transmission of H.I.V. to men occurred at a rate of 2.61 per 100 person-years for women using hormonal contraception compared with 1.51 for those who did not.

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African Contraception Leading To Two Times As Many HIV Cases is a post from: The Inquisitr

The catchy little a capella ditty in there is the real deal. The tune is part of a campaign — funded, amusingly enough, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — to promote safe sex in India. I guess hearing that song at the right moment could inspire you.

The ringtone’s available for free at the aptly named condomcondom.org. Organizers say it’s been downloaded 60,000 times since going live just over a week ago.

The “Condom Ringtone” — Seriously? is a post from: The Inquisitr