Nearly Half of Teens Who Sent Sexts Experienced Sextortion, New National Study Finds

A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in February 2026 by researchers at Florida Atlantic University and the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire documented a sharp national surge in teenage sexting and related sextortion. The study surveyed 3,466 U.S. adolescents aged 13 to 17 and found that 32.4 percent had received a sext and 23.9 percent had sent one, up from 23 percent and 14 percent respectively in 2019. Most significantly, 49.6 percent of teens who had sent a sext subsequently experienced sextortion, defined as threats to share explicit images unless the victim provided more images, money or sexual favors. Younger adolescents proved especially vulnerable: more than 60 percent of 13-year-olds who sent a sext reported the image was shared without their permission, compared to 41 percent of 17-year-olds. Boys were significantly more likely both to experience sextortion and to perpetrate it, and teens who sent sexts to someone outside a current romantic relationship were 13 times more likely to have the image shared without consent and five times more likely to be targeted for sextortion.

The study quantifies the operational gap between when a child sends material and when sextortion begins: for nearly half of senders, the interval is zero. Guardii closes that gap by detecting coercion patterns in the conversation before the child complies. Its anti-sextortion module recognizes the linguistic and behavioral signals of escalation,急迫 requests for imagery, and the shift from flattery to threat, surfacing the conversation to a parent or school counselor while the child still has agency and before material exists that can be weaponized. The research also confirms what detection engineers already know: younger teens lack the risk-assessment capacity to recognize coercion, which is precisely why real-time pattern recognition that does not depend on a child's judgment is the necessary first line of defense.