The methodology of the survey is somewhat weak. Snapchat has only been popular for about a year, whereas sexting has been common for 5+ years now. Not only does this mean that users have had a much longer time to sext via SMS than snapchat, but because it's a self-reported survey it's even worse; users are much more likely to admit to something the longer ago it happened in the past, which skews the data even further. It would have been much better to ask users whether they had sexted within the past six months or whatever.
Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
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Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
people also lie, when you just sent a sex picture and they ask you if you juste sent that, I'm incline to think you will say you didn't. Personally i don't trust their stats, it's lower than the average for text messages, which really does not make any sense to me.
OP here. Thanks for the feedback. We also asked respondents about sexting over text messaging, and got a similar rate (26%) to other studies about sexting[1]. Of course, as we note, this is entirely self-reported behavior and not observed behavior. [1] http://cbsloc.al/Nv7WPR
The male/female ratio of sexting is interesting.
Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#13No way I'm trusting this informal survey unless they have a plausible, data-backed explanation for the supposed huge gender disparity in sexting. The only halfway plausible explanation is that the 3.4% of men who are gay or bi all sext with each other. In other words, a large number of the respondents lied and the data is invalid. That said, anecdotal evidence (the people I talk do every day) strongly indicates that…
I actually found that piece the funniest, and anecdotally after living with 4 women, I expected it. A case I see is a mixture of more Bi/Gay men sexting each other (than Bi/Lesbian women), plus a lot of men either attempting to sex with women (who do not sext back) or sexting with the same smaller subset of women.
Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#14No way I'm trusting this informal survey unless they have a plausible, data-backed explanation for the supposed huge gender disparity in sexting. The only halfway plausible explanation is that the 3.4% of men who are gay or bi all sext with each other. In other words, a large number of the respondents lied and the data is invalid. That said, anecdotal evidence (the people I talk do every day) strongly indicates that…
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Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#15No way I'm trusting this informal survey unless they have a plausible, data-backed explanation for the supposed huge gender disparity in sexting. The only halfway plausible explanation is that the 3.4% of men who are gay or bi all sext with each other. In other words, a large number of the respondents lied and the data is invalid. That said, anecdotal evidence (the people I talk do every day) strongly indicates that…
That's one of the first things that we (I'm a Survata co-founder) noted in seeing the data too.
I see a few possible explanations: (1) A woman who sexts could have multiple sexting partners. In the extreme, you could have every man in the world sext with one woman, making the male sexting prevalence 100% and the female near 0. (2) While we defined sexting as "sending or receiving", some respondents may interpret the question as primarily about sending. There could be a gender bias in the sending vs receiving of sexts. (3) As you point out, the data is reported behavior and not observed behavior. Reported behavior often is a good proxy for observed behavior, but it is not perfect. And there are known to be effects where certain demographics answer questions dishonestly for conscious or unconscious reasons. Perhaps women are less willing to admit to sexting behavior.
Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP here. Thanks for the feedback. We also asked respondents about sexting over text messaging, and got a similar rate (26%) to other studies about sexting[1]. Of course, as we note, this is entirely self-reported behavior and not observed behavior. [1] http://cbsloc.al/Nv7WPR
"We did a survey where we asked 1000 respondents about whether they lied in survey responses. 100% answered 'no'"
Well, that actually might be the case.
More interesting would be if they answered, "yes"
Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#17No way I'm trusting this informal survey unless they have a plausible, data-backed explanation for the supposed huge gender disparity in sexting. The only halfway plausible explanation is that the 3.4% of men who are gay or bi all sext with each other. In other words, a large number of the respondents lied and the data is invalid. That said, anecdotal evidence (the people I talk do every day) strongly indicates that…
Sexting isn't necessarily two-way.
Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#18> Frequently cited uses were to “send funny pictures to my friends” or “make silly faces for my friends” or “send jokes to my friends.”
I don't mean to be a grumpy old man, but this seems even more pointless than usual. If it's not being used for sexual photos, then it's surely a fad that's going to die in a few months.
All that other crap can be done via normal messaging; there's precious little reason to use Snapchat except that it's (briefly, for now) the popular new thing.
Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#19The methodology of the survey is somewhat weak. Snapchat has only been popular for about a year, whereas sexting has been common for 5+ years now. Not only does this mean that users have had a much longer time to sext via SMS than snapchat, but because it's a self-reported survey it's even worse; users are much more likely to admit to something the longer ago it happened in the past, which skews the data even further…
Survata co-founder here.
Good point. We had the same thought and did consider running a survey variant with the fixed 6 mo time frame. And we may just give it a try to see how the results are affected.
Even with the current wording, I find the SMS comparison useful. It demonstrates that people are willing to admit to sexting in the anonymous Survata survey format. I like your hypothesis about greater willingness to admit to "bad behavior" in the distant past than in the recent past. My intuition is that anonymity weakens that effect, but we'll have to measure to know for certain.
Re: Is Snapchat only used for sexting? We asked 5,000 people to find out
#20> Frequently cited uses were to “send funny pictures to my friends” or “make silly faces for my friends” or “send jokes to my friends.” I don't mean to be a grumpy old man, but this seems even more pointless than usual. If it's not being used for sexual photos, then it's surely a fad that's going to die in a few months. All that other crap can be done via normal messaging; there's precious little reason to use Snapch…
The medium changes the way that you use it. Twitter works differently than a blog, due to the 140 character limitation.
Similarly, Snapchat encourages a certain kind of conversation, due to the disappearing photos, and ability to draw on them.