Teenagers’ practices of online sexualization and sexting in Bulgaria

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Teenagers’ practices of online

sexualization and sexting in Bulgaria

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies:_{New Media and Digital Culture at the Graduate School of Humanities at the}

University of Amsterdam Word count: 22 836

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Abstract

This research studies the social metamorphosis of teenage intimate communication brought by digital media. The paper presents the findings of a field work in Bulgaria exploring teenagers’ practices of online sexualization and sexting. It analyzes the stories of fourteen teenagers who talk about the way they balance risks and opportunities online, the peer pressure they face and their motivations to engage in the above mentioned practices. The analysis is enhanced by the point of view of two parents, one school psychologist and four experts who bring political, economic, social, religious and ethnic specifics into the debate. The research presents five initial hypotheses which are later on investigated and comes up with recommendations for legislative reforms.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my lecturers for sparking my curiosity and introducing me to the academic discipline of New Media.

I would like to thank my supervisor dhr. dr. Johannes Simons for his support, understanding and guidelines.

This research would have been impossible without my participants. Thank you so much for trusting me and sharing your stories with me.

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Introduction: the new old anxieties

New media technologies have transformed the way people meet, communicate, work and entertain themselves. All the endless opportunities come with serious risks and there is a need for discussion and legislation on important issues such as safety and privacy in the digital world. Internet has afforded the spreading of phenomena, which have long existed offline but are now mediated online. A lot of our safety and privacy concerns, including the e-crimes are actually “old anxieties” (Lee et al.), such as exposure to violent material, child pornography, grooming and sexual abuse, cyber bullying, identity theft and fraud, hate speech and radicalization among others.

This research is going to delve into the topics of online sexualization and sexting among teenagers and is going to explore the tensions between the risks and opportunities associated with them. To begin with, a theoretical framework will be presented, addressing the hot debates in the academic literature. The case study of Bulgaria will be brought up, outlining country specific characteristics on the topic. Next, the research questions will be formulated, followed by hypotheses.

The methodology section of this paper justifies the choice of empirical research and provides detailed account of my research practices. The findings are grouped in themes which were developed based on the theoretical framework. The five main themes are 1) Platform Usage and Digital Privacy, 2) Education, 3) Online Sexualization, 3) Sexting and 4) Legislation Recommendations. They relate to one or more respective research questions. The conclusion gives an overview of the research project and compares the findings with the initial hypotheses.

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Theoretical Framework

An online self

The Internet has transformed the ways in which we present ourselves, explore the world, communicate, learn and participate in society. People have created online identities, and terms such as ‘online self’ have emerged to describe these online lives. In her book “Life on the Screen”, Turkle explores the online identities that users create. As this research was done back in 1995, the affordances of past technology differ greatly to the modern day ones. The main focus of her study is how we choose characters in games and live a dual life simultaneously.

In contrast to the Multi-User Domains (MUD) space which Turkle explores, creating an online identity on social media can be an identity that fully or partially corresponds to our offline one. According to Facebook’s Terms of Service, one is prohibited from creating an account for anyone other than themselves (Facebook Terms of Service, Section 4.1.).

Children online

A child is anyone under the age of 18 according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC). From a historical point of view, today we are living in an age of ‘extended youth’ because young people stay young for longer – by studying longer and being economically dependent on their families. However, in juxtaposition to the latter point, people are also becoming independent/mature much earlier in regard to sexuality, leisure and consumption (Gadlin in Livingstone).

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Considered a vulnerable group, children’s digital rights, safety and privacy have become a new issue of scholarly and public interest. Online challenges such as the game Blue Whale, blamed for the suicide of teenagers around the world, have raised great concerns about the use of digital technology by children (BBC). As such, computer games have received both supporting and critical stances from the public.

Raising awareness and educating children on media literacy has become a priority in the school curriculum in many countries. In a recent report, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) highlighted ten key messages about children’s rights in the digital age (Third et al.), such as self-actualisation through media use and balancing risk and opportunity.

Teenagers are an age category which is particularly interesting and worth looking at, because while they are legally children, their rights (digital among others) and desires differ significantly. For example, according to the Terms of Service, children above the age of 13 can use the platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Pinterest. Thus, the affordances of those platforms are the same (with some exceptions discussed _{here) regardless of whether the user is above 13 or 18,} while the risks may be greater for the minors.

This paper is going to delve into “the complex spirals of pleasure and danger” (Karaian, p.66) by investigating the practices of sexualization and sexting. Both concepts are portmanteau and stand for “sexual socialization” and “sex texting”. The topic relates to a broad spectrum of academic disciplines, such as sociology, philosophy, anthropology and communication studies among others and thus can be approached differently. As a new media researcher, I am approaching it in view of the intersection of technology and humanities.

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Sexualization

Sexualization is a broad term with varying definitions. _{Papadopoulos (p.23) defines it as} “the imposition of adult sexuality on to children and young people before they are capable of dealing with it, mentally, emotionally or physically. It does not apply to self-motivated sexual play, nor to the dissemination of age-appropriate material about sexuality.” The problem with this definition is that when it comes to the use of social media and instant messaging apps, teenagers may claim to practice ‘self-motivated sexual play’ and to have each other’s consent, which raises the debate around their rights of sexual exploration and the opportunities which new media affords and the risks associated with it. It is a popular belief in mass media and the general public that social media proliferated this phenomenon by vanity metrics such as likes, comments and shares and we often see titles such as “How social media has changed the dynamic between teen girls and boys” (Johnson). Girls are reported to feel obliged to display their bodies in underwear online, while boys, in “a hyper-masculine way, […] to show off muscles” (Ringrose in Papadopoulos, p.8).

The problem is also framed around the bigger picture of whether sex should be spoken of publicly or stay as something private, and how this may differ across cultures. While some consider sexualization as sexual liberation, for others sex should stay private. _The topic also leads to a broader discussion of sexual abuse and new affordances for bullying.

Pornography as an industry is blamed by certain feminists such as Catherine Mackinon and Andrea Dworkin among others, for objectifying women (Seidman, p.99) and creating unrealistic expectations about sex. On the other hand, it is seen as a liberation and societal development by libertarians _{(Seidman, p.100).} What classifies as pornography is another debate which this paper aims to touch upon. _{The famous quote}

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“I know it when I see it” by Potter Stewart, now a colloquial term, was originally used in a pornographic case in the United States Supreme Court in 1964. Today, teenage persecution is one of the hot debates in the United States because of recent cases of arrested minors distributing pornographic material.

Cummings (p.10-11) highlights the problems of perceiving nudity as pornography and forgetting about children’s’ participatory rights. Albury and Crawford (p.471) call against the restrictive attitudes towards the production of sexual images by teenagers.

Technology and Intimacy

Technology has changed the intimate relationships between humans. From bots who comfort children and the elderly to sexbots, more and more inhumane objects are becoming intimate companions. Another aspect of teenagers’ sexualization and sexual exploration is sexting. It is only one aspect of the bigger story of cybersex which involves the communication of sexually explicit messages online. Its emergence is almost ‘natural’ as historically love messages followed technological determinism in the form of letters, polaroid photos, telephone sex, and sex chat rooms. “Computer screens are the new location for our fantasies, both erotic and intellectual.” (Turkle, Screen, p.26) Nowadays teledildonics and other haptic media enable cybersex to take physical forms too.

Sexting is “the creation and sharing of personal sexual images or text messages via mobile phones or Internet applications, including Facebook, Snapchat and email” (Hasinoff, Panic, p.1). To explain the term further, it “can, therefore, refer to communication that is voluntary or involuntary, serious or humorous, public or private, trivial or significant, pleasurable or hurtful.” (Livingstone et al, Children, p.152). Legislation regarding sexting varies depending on the country, but in the vast majority of

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countries sexting under the age of 18 is illegal. There is a public debate, especially in the USA, around the criminalization of sexting. Hasinoff has done extensive research on the moral panic around the issue. _{The risks associated with sexting online include} sexual abuse, grooming, and breach of privacy, which can be considered serious and legitimate reasons for panic. _{However, she calls for shifting the attention from blaming} the victims of privacy violations, to raising awareness about consent. What is more, she claims that as a society we blame the ‘sexters’ more than the people who harass and distribute sexts without consent. This also connects to a larger debate about victim blaming in sexual assault cases.

Another hot issue is “sextortion” which is defined by t _{he International Criminal Police} Organization (_{Interpol) as “blackmail in which sexual information or images are used to} extort sexual favours and/or money from the victim.” The National Crime Agency in the UK reports for a high increase in the number of the victims in the past years including teenagers (Whitworth, 2018).

Terms of Service

Uploading sexual content is also a violation of the Terms of Service published by social media platforms (see _{Appendix 1 for examples). Snapchat offers the affordance} of sending a message or a video to another Snapchat user which he/she can only see for a certain amount of time, ranging from 3 to 10 seconds. By agreeing to the Snapchat Terms of Service, and producing content with the application, a user gives the platform the right to “a worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable licence to host, to store, use, display, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish and distribute that content” (Snapchat).

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Studies and popular media, however, suggest that there is a discrepancy between the terms of service and the actual practices of users. Even though Snap Inc explicitly prohibits pornographic content (see Appendix 1_{), Snapchat has won its fame for the} ultimate sexting app. In addition to the Terms of Service, the community guidelines of Snapchat have a section devoted to Adult content. Again, it remains unclear who will be the one to judge which depiction of nudity is non-sexual as examples are not given besides breastfeeding which is mentioned explicitly and in this case shows the company’s culture of supporting breastfeeding as a non-sexual act. The act of breastfeeding is also an issue of hot debates around the world. There is a special section detailing the guidelines for minors which prohibits any form of sexual material.

Studies (such as Albury and Crowford) have explored young people’s expectations of privacy and the results show that they care about their privacy and expect high level of confidentiality when sharing personal information, including intimate data such as sexts. By performing both media discourse analysis and empirical research with young people, McGovern et al. found out that while the perceptions in the media are mostly negative, teenagers’ perceptions are much more diverse. Contrary to the panic in popular media, a very small minority of teenagers have had upsetting experiences with sexting (Mitchel et al). _{This can be explained with the fact that teenagers mainly sext with their partners} and it is consensual. Popular media tend to blame the victims of privacy violations when it comes to sexting and not the person who executed it (Hasinoff, Panic, p.133).

In the academic literature there is a predominance of cases from Western Europe, USA, Australia but not much academic research done in Eastern Europe. It is worth investigating both teenage practices and attitudes in this geographical area, and the attitudes of organisations directly involved in digital safety and literacy.

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Sexual Education

Although this research is interested in sexual education focusing on the issues of online sexualisation and sexting, it is important to explore the general level of sexual education teenagers receive. _{Zimmerman traced the history of sex education and the dilemmas} raised by community planners, religious institutions, legal authorities, schools and parents. Discussing teenage sexuality is never a topic on its own, it is used as “ _an instrument to manage and an indicator of the moral health of a nation.” (Lee at al, 41) The philosophy of sex education is one that can mirror political debates. Lewis and Knijn discuss the political agenda present in the approaches the UK take in sex education, in comparison to the Netherlands where sex education is not an arena for that.

The Netherlands’ curriculum Long Live Love is given as an example of a country which teaches sexual education starting at the age of four, applying a positive approach which focuses on love. For example, at the age of 4, children are discussing hugs and w _hen p_{eople hug. In the USA, sex education varies significantly by state, but according to} Orenstein is focused on physical acts and dangers, rather than on sexual pleasure.

Zimmerman discusses the idea of a “global right to sex education” (p.123) and the varying approaches countries have taken to address the issue. The Declaration on Sexual Rights of 2008 is “an apotheosis of sorts” (p.125) for Zimmerman. UNESCO presented standard guidelines for sex educat_{ion which provoked criticism by some} national experts.

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The state of the affair in Bulgaria

The policy ma_{king in Bulgaria is vague and has left every school to decide how to} approach the topic of sexual education. This gives schools freedom but it also means that sex education is open to subjective opinions, putting the quality of lessons at risk. Sex education is part of the subject Civil Education, which is currently an elective in Bulgaria as a separate subject but can also be integrated in other compulsory ones. This paper will explore the question of whose responsibility it is to educate teenagers about sexual culture.

The project Safeguarding Teenage Intimate Relationships (STIR) concluded that the competency of teachers in Bulgaria is insufficient and the education system has relied on the third sector to develop initiatives on sexual education (STIR, 19) This research interviews representatives of a Third sector organization teaching sexual education to explore this further. The statistics show that the majority of teaching staff are approaching retirement, which leaves a huge generation gap between them and their teenage pupils _{(see Appendix 2).}

A local newspaper in Bulgaria calls sexting “the disease of the youth” (NDT Newspaper). It is classified as a “Danger” on the website of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre. The center also initiated a campaign, #облечисебе (#dressup) where teenagers are encouraged to post selfies dressed up with as many clothes on as possible, as an antidote of the early online sexualization. Hasinoff and Shepherd critique the “abstinence-only” advice given by educators, and encourage a public debate. Their policy advice is to shift the attention of the campaigns from abstinence to a discussion of when it is ok to share a photo. This research project interviews representatives of the Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre to find out more about their motivations and aims.

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LoveGuide is a YouTube channel and a website which teaches Sexual Education to teenagers in Bulgaria. The founders won funding from Nova TV’s challenge The Change. This once again shows that the gap in teenagers’ sexual education has been noticed by the media and third sector initiatives. The website offers tips on sex and the internet. The research is interested to find out whether the teenage participants know about it and if they have used the website or follow the channel.

As the table below shows, according to Eurostat (Teenage and older mothers in the EU) data of 2015, Bulgaria is in second place (11.9%) for the highest share of births of first children to teenage mothers.

The rate of teenage pregnancies in Bulgaria is high and this is explained mainly with the Roma minorities living in the country who give birth much earlier in comparison to the

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Cultural differences

Culturally, Bulgaria is more conservative when speaking about intimate issues. As the issue of sexualization and sexting is closely related to society’s attitudes towards sexual pleasure, it is worth looking at the country’s value dimension of Indulgence. Hofstede Insights defines this value as “the extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses, based on the way they were raised”. Bulgaria scores low on the value dimension of Indulgence which makes it a “Restrained society”, characterized by pessimism, cynicism, people who behave guided by social norms and who perceive indulgence as “somewhat wrong”.

Unlike countries like the Netherlands, where homosexual relationships are normalized, in Bulgaria there is still a stigma towards the “queer community”. Thus, it can be speculated that there will be a problematic political debate in how sex education will be taught and whether information regarding homosexual sex will be included.

Law

The _{Criminal Code of the Republic of Bulgaria (Article 159) (see Appendix 3) does not} mention sexting explicitly, nor does it clearly define pornography.

Research question

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RQ1: “What are teenagers’ experiences of online sexualization and sexting in Bulgaria and what are their attitudes towards digital privacy?”_.

The sub-questions the research aims to answer are

RQ2: “What are the tensions between the balance of risks and opportunities in the context of online sexualization and sexting?” and

RQ3: “How should we, as a society, educate teenagers (in Bulgaria) about sexting and online sexualization?”

Hypotheses

Prior to conducting the research and based on the review of the affair, the following speculations are made:

1. Teenagers are likely to start using social media platforms before they are legally allowed to do so.

2. Online sexualization is present and is likely to be driven by vanity metrics.

3. Media, educators and the Third sector in Bulgaria see sexting as risky, indecent and an issue that needs prevention.

4. Teachers and parents are likely to be inadequate in keeping up with the digital lives of teenagers which poses a challenge to teenagers’ online security.

5. The fact that _{sex education is not a compulsory part of the curriculum, coupled} with culture-specific characteristics (such as a _{lack of dialogue on sensitive topics} such as sex and sexting) is likely to _{leave Bulgarian teenagers in a} disadvantaged position.

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Methodology

This section gives an account of the reasons for choosing an empirical research as the best-suited method and a detailed explanation of the question formation. I would like to acknowledge the fact that in New Media studies, more contemporary research practices, such as digital methods (Rogers) and data visualization are common, and thus, my method is not in vogue with the New Media scholarships. However, to answer my research questions satisfactorily, more traditional methods had to be used.

Empirical Research

A semi-structured interview is the method which would enable to gather in-depth insights into the practices and motivations of teenagers. This format allows a degree of comparison and analysis while leaving room for expanding on points relevant only for the specific participant. The work of Crang and Cook was valuable reference in my preparation for the field work. A survey would have provided the collection of more data and thus more representative results for the country. However, it would not have allowed for the researcher to ask additional questions when applicable which is crucial for answering the research question. What is more, the validity of who is actually taking the survey cannot be guaranteed. One focus group was used as a test group.

The EU Kids Online is a large collaborative project which produced extensive research on children’s use of the Internet in Europe. “Safeguarding Teenage Intimate Relationships” (Stiritup) is another research project based in five European countries which also has collected valuable data on the topic. Bulgaria has been one of the participating countries in both of those projects, thus, up-to-date quantitative data

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already exists. The results of this research aim to complement the existing studies with more extensive qualitative research.

What makes this research different is the fact that it is interested in capturing teenagers’ own experiences and practices and is not interested in their attitudes towards the issue. Thus, no questions are scenario-based as had been the case in multiple prior studies, such as Hasinoff and Shepherd. If a participant replies “No” to a prerequisite question such as “Have you ever received a sexually explicit image”, there will not be follow up questions, exploring “what if” scenarios. McGovern et al. perform an online survey and a focus group to capture both perceptions and experiences of sexting. My set of questions, on the contrary, requires a one-to-one interviewing (with the exception of a couple of scenario-based questions used in the test focus group). Thus all results represent actual practices and not attitudes. As the questions would be directly related to them, it was important to approach the teenagers in a friendly manner which would make them comfortable to share intimate data.

Livingstone has interviewed teenagers by inviting them to show her their social media accounts and to discuss their motivation for posting the information they have posted. In my research, I suggested to the teenagers to share personal stories and examples of online sexualization and sexting if they feel comfortable doing so.

Studies have been done regarding the sexualization of girls but no much attention has been paid on exploring the extent to which it affects boys. Prior to the interviews, a great concern was whether any male teenagers would volunteer to take part in the research given that the researcher is a female. The representativeness of male participants was of great importance because across the academic literature on the topic, there is a larger representativeness of the female perspective. Hasinoff & Shepherd (2948) highlight as a limitation of their focus groups research the fact that it was with female participants only and they suggest a larger sample for a future research which can mark

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the gender differences better. Another suggestion of theirs is for the legal and educational practices regarding sexting to be evaluated which is what my research aims to do.

Dealing with the concepts

Referring to the Urban dictionary, Karaian argues that teenagers do not define their practice as sexting and this is a definition constructed by the media (64). The word was considered by the New Oxford American Dictionary for a word of the year in 2009 but “unfriend” won instead (Oxforddictionaries.com). This shows that the term itself is relatively new. Gill disagrees with the generalization of the term sexualization when it is used “within a violent generalizing logic” and she uses it in “scare quotes” in her paper to convey her strong position against it (Gill, 139).

The word sexting is not popular in Bulgaria. It is not a dictionary entry in the latest versions of Bulgarian dictionaries. If searched in Google.bg one can observe a predominance of lifestyle magazines with tabloid style articles discussing tips on sexting, rather than discussing the topic itself. Sexualization is a dictionary entry; however, it is not widely used. As the teenagers might not be familiar with the meaning of those concepts, they were gradually introduced during the interviews, rather than used without defining. Every concept in the interview questions was defined to the participants to make sure that they fully understand the question. The experts were also asked if they need clarification of any terms.

“Sexting is the act of exchanging messages, images or videos of a sexual nature through digital communication platforms such as text message, social media or mobile apps. It refers explicitly to self-generated content.” (Kidscape) This definition of sexting does differ from Hasinoff’s definition cited above in one significant aspect. As can be

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seen, different definitions of sexting mention specific channels of distribution of sexually explicit content. Some definitions perceive sexting as referring to self-generated content only. The interview questions in this research specifically distinguish between self-generated and other content when discussing sexting; participants are directly asked questions such as “Have you ever sent a sexually suggestive message online? (of yourself or otherwise); Have you ever received a sexually suggestive photo? (of the person you are communicating with). Was it naked or semi-naked?”

Finding and recruiting participants

The focus group of this study are teenagers (both female and male), aged 14-18, living in Bulgaria. _{The data set consists of twenty-one private interviews and one focus group.} I interviewed fourteen teenagers where the gender ratio of the participants is nine girls and five boys. Eleven interviews were conducted in the High School I attended and three via Skype. I also interviewed two parents and one school psychologist who wished to remain anonymous and four experts who gave me permission to use their real names.

The focus group was conducted with students from one class who volunteered and the purpose was to serve as a test group. I was interested to see if the teenagers would react differently when they are with their peers as opposed to when we speak in private. Twelve people participated in the focus group, three of whom were also interviewed privately.

According to Poole, a researcher needs to spend time with the children to break the ice and make them trust the researcher before asking sensitive questions. The research deals with sensitive information and all measures have been taken to conduct it in an ethical manner. More information about my approach in interviewing the participants

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and the ethics of this research, together with a link to all signed Consent Forms can be found in _{Appendix 4.}

It is important to briefly introduce the five experts and their specific expert fields in order to show the different perspectives they represent and how they are engaged with the topic. More detailed information about the experts and the organizations they represent can be found in_{Appendix 5.}

Georgi Apostolov is the Coordinator of Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre. Apostolov and his colleagues receive signals of online aggression and crimes, organise campaigns and take part in international conferences. They provide training and work on developing methodologies on online safety; they also train trainers which is the way to reach more children.

Margarita Kaleynska teaches Civil Education in a Bulgarian University and is the Head of GLOW Association, which has been teaching Sex Education in Bulgaria for 18 years.

Neda Shishmanova is a final- year student at high school and a Youth trainer at Leadership academy Glow. She has trained teenagers on the topics of sexual education and online image. I was interested in her point of view because she is both a teenager and a creator of the sex education game “Rano Mi e”.

Nadya Zdravkova is a co-founder of LoveGuide (introduced above). She is teaching Sex Education through the website and YouTube channel and as a guest speaker in schools.

The fifth expert is working both as a teacher, teaching the subjects of Psychology and Philosophy in a high school and as the school psychologist in the same school.

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Questionnaire formation

The interview questionnaire for the teenagers consist of 60 questions which can be found in _{Appendix 6 together with a very detailed explanation of the process of question} formation. A different set of questions was prepared for all the different experts with some main questions being present in all of them.

Analyzing the data

For conducting the interviews and analyzing the data, I have followed Raymond’s guidelines. All interviews were audio recorded, ordered, named and can be accessed via a link in Appendix 7 _{. During the fieldwork, I aimed to interview the participants in a} professional and impartial way. Since the topic is highly personal and sensitive, I was empathetic with the participants and my intellectual judgement is only projected in this thesis and was not shown during the interview process. I was taking minimal, verbatim notes during the interviews. In the analysis, a spreadsheet was used to record the answers, which can be accessed via a link in Appendix 7. In addition to that, important quotes were transcribed and used in this thesis to illustrate examples in the narrative. All interviews were conducted in Bulgarian and all translations of the quotes were made by me.

General Remarks

My research aims to assess the issue of online sexualization and sexting in Bulgaria and to compare the results with international studies on the topic. The issue is part of

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larger debates of sexual harassment and sexualization of the childhood among others, which will be touched upon but will not be the focus of this paper. It is important to note that when making comparisons to previous studies, those are aimed only as tentative analogy, as the age group and gender ratio of the samples differ. Thus, the comparisons are not absolute.

Teenagers tend to generalize a lot which I found listening to the extent to which they use _{nobody and everybody. They live in somewhat closed environments. When they} say everyone, I believe they mean everyone I know, in my age.

640 234 young people (aged 10-19) are living in Bulgaria as of 31 December 2017 (NSI). The sample of teenagers is not representative for the Bulgarian youth and my conclusions are only based on the collected data, thus should not be generalized for the whole of Bulgaria. Roma and Turkish minorities live in Bulgaria and their religion and cultural specifics often differ from the ones common for the ethnic Bulgarians. Thus, the research lacks the point of view of a variety of ethnic groups. One of the teenagers interviewed identifies as Roma but his replies did not stand out as different.

The participants who volunteered to take part in the survey through skype have seen my call online and are people who are generally interested in this topic. Thus, their replies might be affected by their previous knowledge of the topic. In the school, nobody has a previous experience being taught about/ participating in a project/event on the topic. One of my skype interviewees is volunteering for the Youth Council in her hometown where she was involved in initiatives on the topic and her attention was drawn to my research when she saw the Facebook post where I was recruiting participants. She admits that the fact that she is “into the topic” has influenced her decision not to sext because she is well aware of the risks.

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The students in the school were all volunteers. Their parents also had to agree to their participation in the research. The fact that the research was happening in the school might have made some students reluctant to take part. What is more, the ones who have been involved in a sexting scandal, might have avoided the research on purpose. During our interview, I gave Elena a definition of sexting and asked her if she had ever come across it as a practice. She immediately started talking about a classmate who was about to join my research. “She didn’t come [to the interview]. And she didn’t come exactly because of this. Because her mother didn’t let her. She was in a lot of trouble because of this type of pictures.” Summaries of the stories and commentaries I collected and more detailed descriptions of my examples can be found in _{Appendix 8.} All stories have been analyzed in the next section.

Direct quotations are used as subheadings when they summarize accurately the point made in the section. Asterisks are used to replace some profanity words in citations.

Findings and discussion

Platform Usage and Digital Privacy

Internet Usage

97% of Bulgarian children aged 9-17 use Internet (Hajdinjak et al, 4). _{Livingstone et al} (63) report that 61% of Bulgarian teenagers, when at home, use internet in their own bedroom. As globally, the use of mobile devices has increased, it is likely that even more teenagers nowadays do not use a shared computer. EU Kids Online classify

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Bulgaria as a country where “use of mobile phones is above average, but use of other handheld devices is below average” (Livingstone et al, 289).

Apostolov begins our conversation by making a remark of how old-fashioned it is to classify as teenagers the children aged 14 because of the early puberty. 50 % of Bulgarian children are online before they turn 7. Those who mainly play games and watch videos are passive IT users. The interest for active online participation grows at the age of 11. This key moment is when the risk becomes higher and teenagers get exposed to harmful content such as websites which promote bulimia and anorexia and websites with suicidal content among others.

Platform Usage

All teenagers interviewed are minors and study in a public school. In the focus group, 1 teenager was 18 years old. A table with the results of the platform usage of the interviewed teenagers and a comparison of those to the results of the Global Kids Online data from 2016 can be found in Appendix _{9. Facebook and Messenger are the} most popular Social Networking Sites, used by all of the teenagers followed by Instagram (92.9%), Snapchat (78.6%) and Viber (57.1%). Two (14.3%) teenagers have used Tinder, although one needs to be over 18 years old to do so according to the application’s Terms of Service.

I ask Stoyan how often he uses Facebook, and his instant reply is: “24/7, 365 days a year”. His response illustrates how intertwined the online and offline lives of the teenagers are . A few of the students replied that they created their profiles when they were in fashion. They did sound as if they did not necessarily need to be part of those social media platforms, but they could not miss out because that was the trend. “We don’t send texts because this is a past fashion” explains Stoyan. Carolina says she had

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“no need” to create a Facebook profile because she prefers to talk to people and Viber and Skype are enough for this. However, her classmates had a Facebook group of the class where important messages were shared and she ended up missing information by not having an account. Fashion and peer pressure are two key motivations in teenagers’ decision-making process about whether to engage in specific activities. Those are key factors that need to be taken into consideration when designing methods to approach them.

When I ask Elena if on her newsfeed there are sexually provocative images and text, she answers with “They are not on Facebook. They get forwarded on Messenger, Snapchat”. Messenger started as a chat on Facebook and later on was transformed into a separate instant messaging application and a platform. Messenger however remains property of Facebook Inc. Teenagers talk about it as if it is a different, private channel. Thus the teenagers do not feel “watched” as a post on the Facebook Newsfeed makes them feel. The private aspect of the messaging applications creates a somewhat false idea of intimacy.

I ask Carolina how many friends she has on Snapchat and she says “I don’t know, around 100, or 200”. This suggests that although she claims to be concerned about her online content production and consumption, she is not aware of the target audience of her own posts, and “snaps” in this case. When Ivan’s son started using Snapchat, his dad installed the application as well as a form of parent mediation. He knows that teenagers share content from parties, such as drunk photos in the app and wanted to stay in the loop with his son’s activity on the application.

The teenagers in the focus group talked about Snapchat’s feature of keeping a Snapstreak - this is an icon next to a users’ name, serving as a badge which means that you send each other snaps for more than 3 consecutive days. This icon illustrates that you created a bond through snaps. The gamification apparently works successfully on

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the teenagers from this focus group because they shared that when one keeps a Snapstreak with a friend, they feel closer and can ask each other for a favour. Another point of discussion was the platform usage and how the content they upload differentiates across platforms. “Snapchats is for secrets” commented the teenagers. This again confirms the platform’s fame as a sexting and parties app.

Snapchat has the affordance of sending a notification if another user has “screenshotted” a snap or parts of a video. The teenagers in the focus group talked about the applications used to record one’s screen which means they do not need to screenshot a snap, and thus the person will not receive a notification. What is more, they enable a whole video to be recorded. In this way even the safest application for explicit content becomes vulnerable. This comes to suggest that technological solutions to privacy breach are inadequate, and this is an argument which will be further explored in this paper.

Creating an account before the age of 13

As discussed in the Theoretical Framework, users need to be at least 13 to create an account in most Social Networking Platforms. However, children aged 8 and 9 are part of social media and even if an email verification is needed, they easily create a fake email account of the parent and give themselves the required permission.

All of the participants of this research had their first Facebook account before they turned 13, the majority saying they were around 10 or 11. Preslava claims to have had her account since she was 7 or 8. For the rest of the platforms, the teenagers were over 13 when they started using them. It is important to note that Instagram became trendy in Bulgaria (and generally) much later than Facebook, so when discussing the age when the teenagers first created an account, this is a factor to have in mind. This can

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also be seen in teenagers’ responses, trying to recall when they started using a certain app based on when it became “trendy”.

Yana created her first profile on Facebook with her mum’s name when she was 10 to play a game. Then when she turned 13, she created her own one. Ivan’s son created a Facebook account before he turned 13 without a picture and used it cautiously. This shows that even when teenagers break the rules, they are concerned. His dad warned him that this is illegal but a huge factor plays the fact that “everyone” has it and this is really important for teenagers. The balance is thus assessed individually, whether to “limit” your child and to what extent. Teddy admits that when she was in 4th grade, her older sister had a Facebook account, which is the only reason why she wanted an account too. This confirms experts’ observations that the practices of older siblings are often portrayed in teenagers’ behaviours.

The EU Kids Online categorizes five types of interventio _{n - active mediation of the} child’s internet 1) use and 2) safety; 3) restrictive mediation, 4) monitoring, 5) technical mediation which can be performed mostly by parents. What is more, teachers’ mediation, peer mediation and other sources of safety awareness are three additional categories the EU Kids online outlines as performed in other contexts, outside the family. I ask Ivan if he has ever filtered content and he replies “No, unfortunately not” and the reason is because he does not live with his son. He does not have an access to the devices and the mum does not have the technical skills. He would otherwise filter content because he thinks that especially under 13 that is compulsory. It is contradictory that he thinks it is compulsory but he has not done it for his own son. Catherina has never filtered content either.

The social media platforms are very well aware of the statistics and are looking into ways to provide services to the children too. Messenger Kids is “tailored to give kids

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aged 6 to 12 the ability to engage in conversations as well as exchange messages, videos and images with parent-approved friends and family” (Magid 2018).

General Data Protection Regulation

The Bulgarian Safer Internet Centre has objections about Article 8 from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) whose implementation began on the 25th of May 2018. Its very first draft used to forbid the access to online services which require registration before the age of 16 which according to Apostolov was “a complete insanity”. After pressure from their network, the Human Rights Commission decided that the national states will be able to decide for themselves if they want to adopt an earlier/ different age, the minimum being 13. In Bulgaria, the Commission of Personal Data Protection (CPDP) recommends the age of 14. The reference in Bulgaria is the criminal code. In Bulgaria a person is an “under-age” before they turn 14 and “minor” before they turn 18.

Education

Sexual education

“It was related to diseases” (Petar).

The Bulgarian education system teaches teenagers about the biological changes that occur during puberty and gives them some basic information about sexually transmitted diseases and their prevention. In most cases, this is a one-off presentation or a lesson. For 12 years at school, Shishmanova had two sexual education lessons in total and it

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was not recommended for the boys to attend them because it was all about menstruation. During those lessons everyone was laughing. She admits that if it was not for GLOW (described above) and for the campaign she organized, she also would not have known much about sexual education because it is a taboo topic at school.

2 (14.3%) participants have never had any form of sex education. In 7th grade Teddy’s class had sexual education and she deliberately did not go to school that day so she can miss it because she was feeling really uncomfortable. She recalls that she faked she was sick to avoid having to experience this. This shows how unprepared teenagers are and also how challenging it will be for educators to approach them in an effective way. Everyone else had some form of sex education during a Biology class. 4 people (28.6%) have talked about online sexualization and sexting in class or other type of formal training. 1 student has discussed it with a teacher privately but not as part of a lesson.

My first set of questions explores teenagers’ experience related to those classes. Preslava confidently says they have never had sexual education at school. I challenge her by asking about the Biology classes, to which she says “very little”, “the reproductive system only”. Borislava, like most of the teenagers, had sexual education only once, and thus has “vague memories”. She did not find it useful and does not remember much of it because the training was focusing on how to put a condom on. Yana remembers that the lesson covered the protection, the diseases and “nothing more”. As their responses show, sexual education is something they relate to diseases and pregnancies. In comparison to the Netherlands, where the approach to sexual education is positive, in Bulgaria, in a similar fashion to the USA, the focus is on the risks and how to avoid them. The students have never been given the opportunity to discuss intimacy, touch, emotions and relationships, the respect for your own body and the bodies of others.

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One of the key elements of a project that the psychologist I interviewed is managing, is devoted to Sexual Education and Reproductive Health. She admits, in an honest and slightly guilty manner that maybe it is too late for that, because the teenagers in this project are in 11th grade (17 and 18 years old). She then defends herself by saying that it is only now that they have actually been given the opportunity to discuss issues like this, and by opportunity she means time: “Things are in a vicious circle, simply because we don’t have the time.” She expands that by explaining how much theory and other material is compulsory to be covered in class, which does not leave room for ‘extra’ topics. This supports this thesis’ position that sex education should become a compulsory part of the curriculum because otherwise, time or resources are not enough to cover it.

The psychologist says grooming definitely exists but personally she had never had to deal with such a case and argues that she believes those are more prominent in bigger cities. This understanding contradicts with Apostolov’s experience who does not see a difference in the online risks being dependent on the size of the town. Kaleynska, who teaches Sexual education, admits that topics like online grooming and online sexual abuse have not been discussed yet in her practice. The experts’ responses show that the online side of sexualization is often ignored during the training given to the teenagers.

Media Literacy Education

“They have no self-consciousness about what is personal and what is not” (Zdravkova)

As there is not a specific media or digital literacy subject in school curriculum in Bulgaria, those skills need to be developed during other classes. My next questions explore if they are taught at school and how. Kaleynska clearly positions the ideal levels

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of responsibility as family, school and third sector. In practice however, the state of affairs in Bulgaria is rather different. Parents themselves do not know the risks of social media. The teachers are not prepared to teach or discuss media literacy. The Ministry of Education and Science (MES) still has not defined online security as a problem to be dealt with at school (Kaleynska). In 2017, only 29 % of the individuals aged 16-74 have “the basic or above basic overall digital skills” (Eurostat) the average for the EU being 57%.

Most of the students recall studying about online privacy during their Information Technology classes. From their responses, I understand that it was mainly the technical side of security which they have dealt with, such as strong password creation. The psychology lessons, on the other hand, are not enough to cover all important issues according to the teacher “they get hinted, but they can’t be fully developed as concepts”. The opinion of the psychologist matches completely with the teenagers’ responses, who recall mentioning concepts like privacy and consent in class but fail to remember what exactly the discussion was about. This leaves the children unprepared for the online risks or makes them more likely to breach someone’s privacy.

Zdravkova is citing directly a schoolboy who said that if a photo is on his phone, he can do whatever he likes with it. Sexual education and privacy are closely related because part of the sex education is to respect the privacy of others and to realize that everyone has a different privacy border. She adds that even adults lack consideration sometimes, especially when tagging people and uploading photos of children and mutual friends’ children online (Zdravkova). Digital literacy appears to be a skill even adults have not mastered yet and the reason, according to Zdravkova, is the newness of digital communication as a phenomenon, forcing us to “learn by the trial and error method”.

If a teenager lacks media literacy, they will not be able to assess what is realistic, what is advertising and what is not. The risk of false advertisement is what Zdravkova brings

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to our conversation, having seen Google’s first page results on the search “extending the size of your penis” is mostly advertising and exercises. Her experience shows that teenagers often search for similar queries and as a result of this, get unrealistic expectations, based on advertising.

Awareness of the risks online

The EU Kids Online categorizes four groups of countries, illustrating children’s use of the Internet and related risks. Bulgaria is placed in group 4 - high use and high risk. What is more, the experts report that Bulgarian and Romanian children “encounter more online risk despite lower national broadband penetration” in contrast to countries like the UK and Germany with high broadband penetration and lower risks, thus Bulgaria is given the definition of a “new risk” country.

To explore this further, my questions aimed at mapping teenagers’ and parents’ awareness of the risks online. During our conversation, Georgi, like other teenagers, differentiates between social media and “real life”. This comes to suggest that teenagers do not fully perceive social media as real life which is why it might be harder for them to assess the risks and the possible consequences of their actions. Borislava thinks she is “somewhat aware” of the risks, while Elena starts giving me some “right” answers about what is not advisable to do without actually naming any risks.

A couple of times Catherina as a parent confidently says there are risks but fails to name them or explain what they are. She highlights the fact a lot of the studying preparation for school is done online, somehow thinking of ways to “excuse” children for spending a lot of time online.

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Parents should track the applications and websites which thei_{r children use only while} they are young, says Shishmanova who is also still a teenager. By the time they are teenagers, they should already know how to use them safely. If a parent starts tracking a teenager and their browsing history, this is an “unpleasant interference _{into your} personal space” says Shishmanova. She clarifies that the internet space which teenagers use is their own, like their rooms. Thus, checking someone’s browsing history is “the same like entering a room without knocking”.

Neither Catherina, nor Ivan has ever confiscated a device from their children. They also have not searched their children's’ browsing history. They both claim to know what kind of applications their children use although they did not mention them. Ivan follows his son everywhere on social media and has his settings adjusted so that he receives a notification when he posts online. I can see from their responses how hard it is for them to “stalk” their children and respect their privacy at the same time.

The school psychologist is rather pessimistic and has a negative attitude towards new media technologies which for her are a “manipulation”. “Our children are experiencing an information overload” , arguing that they cannot find the borders and things go out of control which leads to early marriages, abortion and children being manipulated by sects. She also mentions the game Blue whale (mentioned above) as a big online danger. Apostolov, on the other hand, expresses his great disappointment of parents who believe in this game but he acknowledges the fact that it is the media that is talking about it and confusing the masses. According to Apostolov, a game like this does not exist. It is peculiar how even this school psychologist will be a person the Safer Internet Center will have to educate on what is fake news and what is not, while the topic of our discussion was indeed the fact that students cannot assess information. This once again comes to prove the point that the challenges which teenagers are experiencing are challenges all adults face, too.

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Attitudes towards digital privacy

In the focus group five people (41.6 %) had a public Facebook profile and seven (58.3%) had a Friends only account. Of those who have Instagram - six (66.7%) have public profiles and three (33.3%) have a Request only profile. Zdravkova’s observations are that teenagers often have public social media profiles. She believes a user is less likely to get approached if their profile is locked which is what she recommend in her talks. She also advises teenagers to avoid “checking in” regularly. According to Stoyan, however, nobody is going to be interested in tracking his life because “there are 7 billion people on the planet”. His password is secure, his Facebook settings are adjusted to “Friends only” and only mutual friends can send him requests. He would receive a notification if someone attempts to log in to his Facebook account from another device which is why he is not concerned. _{This again brings the debate of whether technological} solutions are enough to prevent fraud, e-crime and privacy breach.

Dimitar does not upload photos which is why his Facebook and Instagram accounts are public. Teenagers seem to believe that only photos are “personal data”. A few of them justified their choice of having public accounts with this fact. They are not aware of the “power” of all other data which they generate, even if it is just by clicking, such as likes, comments, views among others. The reason for this is that they have never been informed what kind of trackers there are online and what exactly personal information is.

EU Kids online survey shows that Bulgaria and Romania rank in top places in Europe according to the frequency of teenagers searching for new friends online (Livingstone et al 2012, p.105). Until recently, Borislava did not include her hometown in her Facebook profile because of privacy concerns. Friends she has met on training had messaged her to ask where she is from. As a result of this, she added her hometown so her friends

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can see it. This shows that even teenagers who are highly concerned about their privacy are likely to share personal information if asked and if attention is paid to them.

The results come to suggest that overall, the teenagers in my sample are concerned about their privacy and have taken the necessary measures to secure their accounts according to their own understanding and need. This contradicts the general opinion found in popular media that teenagers are oblivious Internet users and confirms Livingstone’s argument that teenagers are concerned about their digital privacy.

Civil Education in Bulgaria and the teaching staff issue

“And then I meet children’s rebuff, their opinion which is completely opposite to my own. And here is the clash between positions which cann

ot be resolved” (Psychologist)

According to Eurostat, based on 2012 data, children in Bulgaria spend 16.4 years in education. Sexual education and digital literacy are components of Civil Education which in Bulgaria is a “hotchpotch” as Kaleynska jokingly defines it. It can be chosen as an elective but the elements of Civil Education are integrated in other subjects such as Philosophy. All teachers are expected to teach Civil Education but in practice, teachers are not adequately prepared to do so as the results of this research suggest. However, experts often see that in smaller places, the community is more united and the teachers feel more responsible about their students. Even though the communities feel close to each other, the school psychologist comments that “our relationship with them is fleeting” describing the fact that teachers don’t spend enough time with the teenagers. She also discusses the “barrier” teenagers build because having Internet, they have gained the confidence that “they already know everything” and teachers are unable to give them new knowledge.

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Both the experts and the teenagers claim that the educational staff in Bulgaria is not satisfactorily prepared and “competent” (Anna) to teach Sexual Education, and especially issues related to online sexualization. Many of the older teachers lack media literacy skills, and cannot work with social media for example, comments Kaleynska. The school is not adequate and teenagers approach the sexual education “with laughter” (Ivan) because it is introduced too late and in a distant way.

Usually when the LoveGuide team attends schools, the teachers leave the room so that the students would feel free to ask all of their questions. I also did my focus group discussion without a teacher present, for the exact same reason. I ask Zdravkova if the age of teachers has an impact and before I have finished my sentence she sharply answers “Definitely!” and adds that this is something that the teachers themselves are well aware of. This is also something students have shared with her and with me. Zdravkova clearly says there are many “cool” older teachers. However, when they initially tried to contact schools all around the country as part of their project “The Change” in 2017, most replies came from young teachers. “The current generation of teachers needs to change” (Zdravkova). Bulgarian students need younger teachers to talk to about sensitive topics.

The school psychologist, who is also a teacher, starts our interview by admitting she is aware that she has an extreme opinion on the matters to be discussed and maybe it is her age which is the main reason for it. She has recently attended an UNICEF event where she has heard “different opinions” of people advocating against “putting kids in a frame”. She disagrees and says that helping teenagers assess information is not putting them in a frame. “A person has to find his own limit”, but this is not an easy task to achieve, especially when working with young people. The participants in the focus group have not discussed sexting and sexualization with teachers but they say they would be happy to do so if given the opportunity. They all agreed that their teachers are old and although some have “a young mind”, the rest are both old and old-fashioned.

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“We are free and more liberated” says Teddy about their generation while she compares it to their teachers who are highly critical of the youngsters and would make comments like “how did the world end up here” with regards to sexting for example.

One of Anna’s classmates (let’s call her Iliyana) got her nude photos leaked. Iliyana sent them to a guy who forwarded them to a girl, who made a Facebook page and uploaded them to a website which is how they became public. I have heard this type of story a number of times. What grabs my attention in this occasion is their teacher’s reaction. “The form tutor scolded her” says Anna. The teacher entered the room, holding a phone, showing it and asking the girl “What is this?”. Her friends comforted her as she was crying. The rest of the class decided not to address it, to minimize her concerns. For Anna, it was more helpful to pretend this did not happen in front of the girl. “We didn’t judge her”. The issue was “quenched” and it was not discussed with the class. This illustrates the fact that teachers are unprepared to deal with accidents like this and sometimes do not react in the most neutral and professional way.

Another story, with a more adequate reaction which happened in Anna’s school is when in a 5th grade class, someone “photoshopped” a penis next to the picture of a girl (the girl is not naked in the picture, it was a photo downloaded from her Facebook profile). The montage was shared in a group chat. After this accident, the school psychologist invited Anna to discuss online security with the 5th graders. Two things strike me in this story. First of all, what happened did not get ignored and there was a follow up to discuss it which was lacking in the previous accident. Second, the teaching staff shifted the responsibility to Anna, another student, who is older. My research shows that teenagers seem to prefer talking about sensitive issues like sex with younger people, so peer to peer education is a solution which will be explored more extensively later in this paper.

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Current initiatives and the Third Sector

According to Kaleynska, the expectations towards the third sector in Bulgaria are huge and the NGOs “struggle to compensate for the gaps in the system”. There is a variety of initiatives on both sexual education and digital literacy in Bulgaria which this paper does not have the scope to discuss. A few are mentioned in _{Appendix 10 as examples of} projects the interviewed experts have worked on. I was interested if the teenagers know about them and the results suggest that the reach was not very wide. None of the participants in the focus group had heard about the campaigns Rano Mi e and #dressup while four people had heard of LoveGuide. From the personal interviews, three (21.4%) have heard of Rano Mi e and eleven (78.6%) have not. Nobody has head of #dressup and six (42.9%) have heard of LoveGuide. Thus, although the Third sector is trying to organize campaigns, this is only as much as they can do in reaching everyone.

Promoting abstinence

“There is no way a phenomenon like this one [sexting] can be stopped and we would be silly to think we are able to do it” (Kaleynska)

Not all organizations have “an adequate approach” (Apostolov) in teaching sexual education but what is more, creating campaigns aimed at teenagers is highly complex as they cannot be one sided- only positive or only negative. According to Apostolov, “_{the don’t-do-it attitude”}

is a pointless strategy. Despite this, Kaleynska argues that

promoting abstinence is the tendency in Bulgaria and also the main problem. When it comes to sexting, it would be more effective to teach students how to do it safely but most organizations prefer to promote abstinence. “There is a lack of confidence in the ability of young people to provide their own safety.” (Kaleynska)

Teenagers’ practices of online sexualization and sexting in Bulgaria