The “Psychologization” of Self-Images: Parents Views on the Gendered Dynamics of Sexting and Teen Social Media Cultures

Abstract

This paper reports on data from interviews conducted with parents of high school-aged teens as part of a study which was aimed at better understanding the gendered dimensions of youth sexting and social media use, and the community responses to it. Here, we outline the findings on parents’ key concerns around digital and social media, their perceptions of the gendered dynamics of youth self-imaging practices, and their attitudes towards sexting and potentially “sexualized” self-images. Echoing other research in this area, parents were not overly concerned about sexting, nor sexual image-sharing or sexual media use among teens. Rather, their key concerns were more generally about the intensities and pressures of constant contact with peers in the digital era. They did, however, articulate key gender differences and socialization processes around youth self-imaging practices. We discuss the gendered cultural “attunements to sexualization” that parents negotiate in relation to social media image-sharing practices and suggest that the perspectives and experiences described can be understood as part of a broader cultural “psychologization”, and often psycho-pathologizing, of youth self-images in digitally networked intimate publics that is particularly intense around the vectors of gender and sexuality.