What is it about?
The growing use of digital technologies has generated new dynamics in the interpersonal and sexual relationships of adolescents and young adults. Forms of Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence (TFSV), such as image-based sexual harassment and image-based sexual abuse, have gained relevance. This phenomenon particularly affects girls, perpetuating structural gender inequality dynamics in digital environments. This study aims to examine how technology-facilitated sexual violence has been addressed in a sample of adolescents and young adults in recent scientific literature, contributing to its reconceptualization. A review of reviews was conducted based on international scientific literature. The search was conducted across academic databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, Medline, PubMed, PsycINFO, and ERIC, and limited to systematic and scoping reviews published between 2015 and 2025. This article synthesizes the selected reviews, organized around eight key dimensions: conceptualization, perception, attitudes, behaviors, risk factors, consequences, help-seeking, and prevention. Twenty-six reviews, comprising 1,114 studies, met the inclusion criteria. The results show high conceptual variability regarding behaviors derived from technology-facilitated sexual violence. An emotional and social impact on adolescent girls is highlighted, as well as an institutional tendency to minimize these forms of violence. Preventive interventions tend to focus on individual risk, neglecting structural dimensions such as gender and power. The reconceptualization of image-based sexual harassment and abuse within the framework of technology-facilitated sexual violence is proposed, highlighting the need for a standardized measurement instrument to enable study comparisons. This review underscores the need for more contextualized interventions that protect the sexual and digital rights of adolescents and young adults.
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Why is it important?
Digital environments have transformed youth intimacy, but they have also amplified structural gender violence through Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence (TFSV). This systematic review of reviews addresses a critical gap in research: the profound conceptual ambiguity and overrepresentation of the term "sexting" to label behaviors that are inherently abusive, such as image-based sexual harassment (IBSH) and image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). By synthesizing data from 26 international reviews spanning 1,114 primary studies, this article reveals how digital sexual violence disproportionately victimizes adolescent girls and young women. It exposes how traditional patriarchal double standards punish female sexuality online, minimize perpetrators' accountability, and normalize non-consensual image forwarding under the guise of "playful" behaviors. Ultimately, this work is essential because it demonstrates that current educational, clinical, and legal frameworks are failing to provide adequate protection due to a lack of standardized measures and a general tendency toward victim-blaming and institutional minimization.
Perspectives
A feminist, gender-transformative, and digitally aware framework is urgently needed to move beyond prohibitive strategies and protect youth digital rights. From our perspective as researchers, technology-facilitated sexual violence must not be treated as a collection of isolated digital incidents, but rather as an online extension of the structural continuum of violence that women navigate throughout their lives. Interventions cannot remain focused solely on individual risk or digital safety tips; they must target the root causes of hegemonic gender culture and toxic peer dynamics that reward male digital aggression. We advocate for the urgent development of standardized measurement instruments to enable rigorous cross-study comparisons, alongside comprehensive sex education curricula that equip not only adolescents but also families, teachers, and judicial staff with the tools required to dismantle double standards, recognize digital abuse, and foster safe, consensual spaces.
Yolanda Rodríguez Castro
Universidade de Vigo
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence among Adolescents and Young People: A Systematic Review of Reviews, Adolescent Research Review, March 2026, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s40894-026-00281-x.
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