Misinformation from medias affecting the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents.

Digital media are increasingly influencing the lives of young people. Around the world, adolescents are using digital media as a platform to learn, experience, and communicate. Young people use smartphones, tablets and computers to engage in diverse online activities, such as social networking, instant messaging/texting, and browsing websites/search engines. This connectivity creates both positive opportunities but also challenges on many fronts.

Unfortunately, the very features of the Internet that facilitate new opportunities also create new risks for young people’s SRH. Common harms have been organised in the following categories: contact, conduct and content.

CONTACT

• Online sexual grooming

• Online sexual abuse and exploitation

CONDUCT

• Discrimination and cyberbullying

• Non-consensual sharing of sexts

• Revenge porn

CONTENT

• Unwelcome exposure to sexually explicit content

• Inappropriate or harmful content (e.g. violent pornography)

• Misinformation 

Contact
Harmful contact refers to instances where a young person participates in risky communication with
another person, particularly where there is a power difference, such as an adult. Within the context of
SRH, risky communication often comes in the form of an adult seeking inappropriate online or offline
contact with a young person for sexual purposes.

Conduct
There are various ways in which young people engage in conduct online that is potentially harmful to themselves and/or others. In fact, due to the anonymity of online communication, online discrimination and cyberbullying can often be enhanced compared to the non-digital world. A form of harmful conduct is the non-consensual distribution of sexts. A potentially more harmful outcome of sexting is the risk of revenge porn or non-consensual pornography. Revenge porn refers to the online distribution of private sexually-explicit content of an individual by their partner on a social media site or pornography site. These activities can have damaging impacts on victims, such as humiliation, poor mental health, and offline harassment.

Content
Content risks refer to instances where a young person is exposed to unwelcome, inappropriate or
potentially harmful online content. This can take different forms, including pornographic content,
discriminatory content, and misinformation. Increased accessibility of the Internet has facilitated the dissemination of harmful content to young people. Significant gender differences were also observed, with men consuming more often, for longer periods, and at an earlier age than women. There is good evidence that young people’s attitudes, values and norms about sex are affected by exposure to pornography, particularly in the absence of access to comprehensive sexuality education.