It is clear that our society is highly sexualized these days, from television shows to advertisements. Teenagers are getting in touch with their sexuality from a much younger age than our grandparents and parents.

A recent study has shown that girls have a habit of sending nude or almost nude pictures of themselves by cell phone or e-mail. Moreover, some of them also post these pictures of themselves on several social networking websites, although many of them have strict policies against such pictures being posted by underage users.

The statistics are quite worrisome, as one in five girls have admitted to sending and posting such pictures, and as eleven percent of the girls who admitted are 16 or younger.

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com joined forces and have conducted a survey on 1,280 teenagers and young adults, with ages ranging from 13 to 26. The 20-page report they released on Wednesday was called “Sex and Tech”.

It is a well known fact that teenagers know their way quite well around computers and generally tech-related things, gadgets, devices and the like. However, their knowledge can be quite dangerous once they become using it in ways that can endanger their safety.

Of the teenagers and young adults that took part in the survey, 21% of the girls and young women and 18% of boys and young men admitted to have sent or posted partially nude pictures of themselves on the Internet. 52% of girls send them as presents for their boyfriends, while 40% did it as a joke. This casual behavior and recklessness with nude is a factor in the growing rates of unplanned teen pregnancies in the United States.