To understand why adolescents post sexual pictures of themselves
on social network sites, it is important to take their primary
audience into account and to understand how they would like to
be perceived by this audience. The primary audience of adolescents
is their peer group and research has shown that most adolescent
have an intrinsic desire to be popular among these peers (Santor,
Messervey, & Kusumakar, 2000). As a result, how adolescents present
themselves online and whether they present themselves sexually
or not may highly depend on peer norms and adolescents’
sensitivity to these norms.