Accepted Manuscript

Teenagers’ personal accounts of experiences with digital intimate partner violence

and abuse

Per Moum Hellevik

PII: S0747-5632(18)30554-5

DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2018.11.019

Reference: CHB 5790

To appear in: Computers in Human Behavior

Received Date: 29 May 2018

Accepted Date: 08 November 2018

Please cite this article as: Per Moum Hellevik, Teenagers’ personal accounts of experiences with
digital intimate partner violence and abuse, Computers in Human Behavior (2018), doi: 10.1016/j.
chb.2018.11.019

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Article title:

Teenagers’ personal accounts of experiences with digital intimate partner violence and abuse

Author:

Per Moum Hellevik, Ph.D.-candidate 2

Affiliations:

Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

2 Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo, Norway

Adresses:

Per Moum Hellevik

Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies

Gullhaugveien 1-3, 5 etg.

0484 Oslo

Phone: +47 99 70 60 14

Email: p.m.hellevik@nkvts.no

Declarations of interest:

None

Funding:

This work was supported by the European Union’s Daphne III Funding Programme, which aims to contribute to the

protection of children, young people and women against all forms of violence and attain a high level of health

protection, well-being and social cohesion.

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Article title:

Teenagers’ personal accounts of experiences with digital intimate partner violence and abuse
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Abstract

Background: While in-person intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) among teenagers

has been widely studied in the past two decades, knowledge about the role digital media plays

in IPVA is limited.

Objective: The aims of the study were to explore the nature of digital IPVA among victimized

teenagers and how digital IPVA co-occurs with other forms of dating violence in this age group.

Method: Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of 14 teenagers

(12 girls), aged 15 to 18 years old, who had experienced digital IPVA victimization.

Analysis: The teenagers’ personal experiences with digital IPVA victimization, were analyzed

using thematic analysis.

Results: Four categories of digital IPVA victimization were identified: harassment, control,

monitoring, and sexual coercion. Additionally, many respondents reported that digital IPVA

co-occurred with similar forms of in-person victimization. However, a few experienced digital

victimization only.

Conclusion: The findings show that digital IPVA is multifaceted with severe impact on

teenagers’ lives. It can co-occur with in-person IPVA but can also be restricted to the digital

arena. Nevertheless, digital IPVA occurs within the framework of intimate relationships.

Prevention efforts should target young people’s understanding of intimacy, sexuality, and what

it means to be in an intimate relationship.

Keywords: intimate relationships; violence; abuse; digital media; teenagers; victimization

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1. Introduction

Digital media, such as instant messaging, social networking sites, mobile phones, and

computers, is an important platform for social interaction between young people (Eurostat,

2015; Lenhart, 2015). While such technology provides teenagers with opportunities related to

establishing and maintaining relationships (Draucker & Martsolf, 2010; Valkenburg & Peter,

2011) and exploring their sexuality (Klettke, Hallford, & Mellor, 2014), it also presents a risk

for victimization by providing a new avenue for violent and abusive behaviors, including

monitoring and harassment, within intimate partner relationships (Draucker & Martsolf, 2010;

Stonard, Bowen, Walker, & Price, 2017). This paper explores teenagers’ personal experiences

with digital violence and abuse in their romantic relationships and how such violence and abuse

co-occur with other forms of dating violence in this age group.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines intimate partner

violence and abuse (IPVA) as physical, psychological, or sexual, violence within a dating

relationship, and it can take place either in person or electronically, through digital media (CDC,

2012). This definition also encompasses violence and abuse in teenagers’ intimate relationships

(CDC, 2016). However, while the type, prevalence, and impact of in-person IPVA among

adolescents1 has been widely studied, empirical research on the role of digital media in

adolescent dating relationships is still in its infancy (Stonard et al., 2017).

Digital media is increasingly becoming the primary mode of communication between

teenagers in intimate relationships, and, unfortunately, as the use of this new technology has

increased, digital victimization has also become more prevalent (Alvarez, 2012). In a relatively

1 The empirical foundation for this paper is based on data from teenagers. However, much
research within this field focus on adolescents, which includes a wider age span than just the
teen years – commonly 10 to 18 years-old (see Curtis (2015) for a discussion of the concept
of adolescence). In this paper, the term ‘teenager’ will be used when referring to the data
being analyzed, or when the referenced study uses the term, while the term ‘adolescence’ will
be used when referring to research that use that specific term.

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recent review of studies on technology’s role in IPVA among adolescents, Stonard, Bowen,

Lawrence, and Price (2014) found that between 12 and 56% had experienced some form of

digital IPVA victimization. Though reported prevalence rates varied considerably from study

to study (partly due to differences in the samples, timeframes, and measures used), even the

lowest rates indicate that digital IPVA is relatively prevalent among young people.

The tendency of online communication to lower behavioral inhibitions, which again

may result in violent and abusive communicative behavior, has been interpreted within the

context of the online disinhibition effect (Suler, 2004). Here, Suler argues that the use of

computer mediated communication can, in some instances, facilitate disinhibition, resulting in

people saying or doing things that they would not tend to say or do otherwise. Such disinhibition

can result in both positive (e.g., self-disclosure, helping others) or negative (e.g., flaming, verbal

attacks) behavior, the former referred to as “benign disinhibition” and the latter as “toxic

disinhibition.” Suler describes six factors of online communication that facilitate positive and

negative communicative behavior: (1) dissociative anonymity, where the anonymity offered

online makes it possible to separate online behavior from in-person identity, which in turn

makes it easier to disown any digital antisocial and/or harmful behavior; (2) invisibility, where

textual communication hides a person’s physical identity, making misrepresentation possible

and lowering inhibitions because tone and body language remain hidden; (3) asynchronicity,

where the fact that many types of digital communication platforms do not occur in real time

(e.g., forums/message boards, e-mail) makes it possible to avoid the receiver’s response to a

communication; (4) solipsistic introjection, where the lack of in-person cues makes individuals

assign characteristics (e.g., tone of voice, visual looks) to others they are communicating with,

thereby “creating” characters of others based on their own personal expectations and needs; (5)

dissociative imagination, where the dissociativeness of online space, coupled with the creation

of one’s own images of the characters one are communicating with, facilitates a belief that the

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Internet can be viewed as personal fantasy; and finally, (6) minimization of status and authority,

where the lack of social cues signaling authority (e.g., body language, titles, clothing)

diminishes authority figures’ status and power, making the Internet an equal playing field. Some

of these factors most appropriately pertain to communication that occurs between parties that

are completely anonymous to each other (e.g., dissociative imagination and minimization of

status and authority). However, other factors, such as dissociative anonymity, invisibility,

asynchronicity and solipsistic introjection, can pertain to communication between parties that

know each other outside of the online arena. Moreover, while Suler (2004) refers to more

general aggressive behavior, such as rude language, anger, hatred and threats, when describing

toxic disinhibition, in this paper, toxic disinhibition will be used in an attempt to better

understand violent and abusive communicative behavior that occurs within intimate

relationships through the means of digital media.

In order to capture the nature of digital IPVA among teenagers and how it is experienced

by victims, a qualitative exploration is crucial. To date, only a handful of qualitative studies on

digital IPVA among young people have been published. In the first of these, Draucker and

Martsolf (2010) interviewed 18–21-year-olds who had perpetrated and/or been victims of

dating violence during adolescence. Looking at the participants’ retrospective accounts of these

experiences, Draucker and Martsolf identified several ways in which technology had been used

in dating violence, such as to argue with, monitor, or control a partner, and to perpetrate

emotional or verbal aggression. The monitoring and controlling activities often entailed that the

abusive partner constantly called, particularly when the victim was spending time with someone

of the opposite sex. Other examples included going through the partners’ texts and voice mails,

and even installing keylogging software. While some perceived their partners’ controlling and

monitoring behaviors to reflect care and concern, most said that their abusive partner had

indicated that their behavior was motivated by distrust and insecurity in the relationship.

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Draucker and Martsolf’s study is important, because it was the first attempt at increasing our

contextual understanding of digital IPVA. However, as noted by the authors themselves, a

limitation of the study is that participants were young adults retrospectively describing their

experiences from adolescence. As pointed out by Baker and Carreño (2016), this limitation is

compounded by rapid changes in technology.

In another study, Lucero, Weisz, Smith-Darden, and Lucero (2014) conducted focus

groups on IPVA victimization and perpetration among dating adolescents. The most commonly

reported abusive actions identified in this study were password sharing/access, spying

on/monitoring a partner, sexting, and constant contact. Lucero et al. (2014) also found that their

participants often minimized the seriousness of the digital media–based power and control

behaviors in dating relationships, and that most considered some of these actions to be typical

parts of teenage dating experiences, for example the constant monitoring of a partner. In

particular, the young women in their study described how constant monitoring was a necessary

component of their intimate relationships (in order to maintain the relationship). Of note,

however, both distrust and jealousy were frequently mentioned as consequences of this kind of

technology use. While this study had several strengths, including a high school sample of dating

teens, as noted by the authors, the focus group format might have prevented the participants

from sharing personal vulnerabilities more in-depth.

In a similar study, Baker and Carreño (2016), conducted focus groups with adolescents

about the use of technology at different stages of their intimate relationships, including the use

of technology in relation to dating violence. Participants in their study described how the use

of technology could exacerbate feelings of jealousy, particularly when their partner interacted

with someone of the opposite sex. In line with findings in the aforementioned studies, feelings

of insecurity and jealousy led to problematic and abusive behaviors, including checking their

partner’s phone and social media activity, tracking them, constantly texting/calling, attempts at

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isolating their partner, and even instances of breaking their partners’ phone. The authors

concluded that because technology has increased perpetrators’ opportunity to reach and abuse

their partners even when they are not physically together, it is important that prevention

programs address the digital arena. Of note, Baker and Carreño described that though most

participants appeared comfortable with the focus group setting, a few seemed to be holding

back. As such, as also noted by Lucero et al. (2014), individual interviews may be a better

format for exploring these issues. In line with this notion, in a recent study, Howard, Debnam,

and Strausser (2017) conducted in-depth interviews with adolescent girls to explore the use of

technology in the context of dating dynamics. They found that the participants reported both

positive (e.g., facilitating the formation and maintenance of relationships) and negative (e.g.,

spreading of rumors) utilities of digital media in their dating relationships. However, because

Howard et al. used a convenience sample of high school girls, the respondents had not

necessarily experienced any forms of IPVA.

In another recent study exploring the role of digital media in adolescent romantic

relationships and IPVA, Stonard et al. (2017) also found that participants reported that the new

technology had mixed relational utilities. More specifically, they reported that while digital

media had a positive impact on the development and maintenance of their romantic

relationships, it also provided a new avenue for unhealthy and abusive behaviors (including

harassment, monitoring, and controlling behaviors) within these relationships. The adolescents

described an awareness of, and experiences with, several monitoring and controlling behaviors

via digital media, including partners going through their messages and online accounts to

determine who they had been in contact with, demanding passwords to their mobile phone and

online accounts, and controlling or deleting friends or ex-partners. Stonard et al. (2017) noted

that a number of these unhealthy dating behaviors often were linked to distrust and concerns

about infidelity. Various features of digital media, including the instant and constant access,

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were reported to provide unique opportunities for controlling behaviors from romantic partners.

This again may, according to the authors, lead to particular effects (e.g., no escape from the

abuse) of digital IPVA (Stonard et al., 2017). Most of the focus groups in this study were mixed-

gendered, which is an important strength. However, the fact that a teacher was present during

the focus groups conducted at the schools might have affected the participants willingness to

self-disclose.

Of the existing qualitative studies, only Baker and Carreño (2016) included victims of

digital IPVA who were currently in, or had recently been in, a violent and abusive relationship.

However, because their respondents were recruited on the basis of having experienced “a

problematic relationship” within the last year, all had not necessarily experienced violence and

abuse. Furthermore, none of the qualitative studies conducted to date have explored the

potential co-occurrence of in-person and digital IPVA. Zweig, Dank, Yahner, and Lachman

(2013) have noted that it is not clear whether digital IPVA occurs in isolation from other types

of dating violence and abuse, such as physical violence or sexual coercion, or alongside these

other destructive behaviors in teenagers’ romantic relationships. There has also been a debate

in the field as to whether digital IPVA behaviors are new, or if digital media simply has

introduced a new avenue for more traditional (in-person) IPVA behaviors (Alvarez, 2012).

According to Stonard et al. (2014), we need more research to explore whether digital abuse is

“experienced as a continuum of violence and abuse or whether this may in fact create new

victims” (p. 410). To date, only a few studies have examined the relationship between in-person

and digital IPVA among adolescents, all of which have found a positive association between

the two forms of IPVA (Borrajo, Gámez-Guadix, & Calvete, 2015; Cutbush, Ashley, Kan,

Hamptom, & Hall, 2010; Hellevik & Øverlien, 2016; Temple et al., 2016; Wolford-Clevenger

et al., 2016; Zweig et al., 2013). This provides preliminary evidence that in-person and digital

adolescent IPVA co-occur. However, a qualitative explorative approach is needed, both to more

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accurately describe the characteristics of digital IPVA and to investigate the nature of the

potential co-occurrence of in-person and digital victimization.

In sum, though research on IPVA among adolescents has grown noticeably in the past

two decades, few first-hand descriptions of digital IPVA victimization have been gathered.

Given the extensive use of technological constructs for communication among teenagers, our

knowledge about IPVA in this age group will be severely compromised if the role played by

digital media is not taken into consideration. Thus, as stressed by Stonard et al. (2017), more

research is needed to explore how digital media is used and experienced in abusive dating

relationships among adolescents.

1.2 Research aims

The aim of the present study was to increase understanding of digital IPVA among teenagers

by exploring victims’ personal descriptions of violent and abusive experiences in their intimate

relationships. More specifically, the aims were to explore (1) the nature of digital IPVA among

victimized teenagers and (2) how digital IPVA co-occurs with other forms of dating violence

in this age group.

2. Method

The present study was part of the “Safeguarding Teenage Intimate Relationships” (STIR) study,

an EU study of teenage intimate partner violence and abuse, which includes five European

countries: England, Italy, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Norway. A total of 4,500 teenagers participated

in a survey, while 100 teenagers participated in in-depth interviews. In this paper, the interviews

with Norwegian teenagers will be analyzed. The Norwegian part of the study followed the

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recommended ethical guidelines for social sciences in Norway and was also approved by the

Norwegian Social Sciences Data Services (NSD). The STIR project as a whole was approved

by the Ethics Research Committee at the University of Bristol, UK.

2.1 Participants

All participants included in this study had had at least one intimate relationship and had

experienced some form of IPVA victimization. A total of 21 Norwegian teenagers were

interviewed, with 14 of them (12 girls, two boys, aged 15–18) having experienced digital IPVA

victimization. Four respondents were under the care of child protective services, two lived at

boarding school, and one lived on her own, while the remaining eight respondents lived at home

with their parent(s).

2.2 Procedure

The interviews were performed during spring and summer of 2014. The respondents were

recruited through schools, NGOs, social media, and youth camps. More specifically, invitations

to participate were distributed to teachers and staff at the NGOs, and published on the NGOs’

social media sites. The invitations specifically stated that the goal of the study was to talk to

victims of digital IPVA. As today’s adolescents’ have a broad conceptual spectrum of intimate

romantic relationships, ranging from more fleeing relationships such as “hookups” and “friends

with benefits,” to more serious relationships, such as dating and the more committed

boyfriend/girlfriend dyad (Draucker, Cook, Martsolf, & Stephenson, 2012; Manning,

Giordano, & Longmore, 2006), the respondents were instructed to include any intimate

romantic relationship, past or present – no matter its length or intensity – that they regarded as

applicable to the interview topic. Furthermore, all participating respondents were provided

general information about the study and more specific information about what participation in

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the study entailed. This included a short summary of the interview topic(s), the expected

timeframe, and a statement describing their rights to withdraw from participation at any time

without any negative consequences for them. Additionally, the respondents were provided with

the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of the researchers, as well as contact information to

relevant help lines and organizations. Participation in the interviews was opt-in; respondents

aged 16 or older could give their own consent, while respondents younger than 16 had to have

parental consent before they could be interviewed.

The interviews were semi-structured, with each interviewer closely following a guide

of pre-determined questions and topics, while also opening up for the interviewers and

interviewees to address additional topics at their own initiative. The topics included questions

about the respondents’ demographic backgrounds (e.g., age, who they lived with), their intimate

relationships (e.g., length of intimate romantic relationships, age of partner, the best/worst

aspects of being in a relationship), experiences of violence and abuse in intimate relationships

(e.g., what happened in the violent relationship, how the violence and abuse made them feel,

frequency of violence and abuse, whether they told anyone), and questions about their views

on prevention and intervention (e.g., what can be done, who can help). Additionally, the

participants were asked about their general use of digital media. This included questions

regarding what social media platforms they used, and how they got online access (e.g., phone,

iPad, PC, etc.).

2.3 Analysis

Due to the explorative nature of the study, the analysis was done according to the principles of

thematic analysis. Thematic analysis is defined as “a method for identifying, analyzing and

reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun, Clarke, & Terry, 2014). There are several steps

to the process of thematic analysis, including getting familiar with the data, initial coding,

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finding and reviewing themes, and defining and naming these themes (Braun et al., 2014). This

stepwise process was the basis for the data analysis. In the first part of the analysis, the author

read through the transcribed interviews to become familiar with the data and obtain an overview

of the texts. The second part involved a more thorough read-through of the transcriptions with

a narrowed focus on potentially interesting subjects and themes. In this second step of the

process, overarching constellations of victimization re-occurring throughout the respondents’

descriptions of digital IPVA victimization were identified in the text by looking at certain

excerpts from the data. In the third part of the analysis the excerpts were test-categorized and

viewed in relation to other potentially interesting excerpts, resulting in categories being either

kept or discarded. Here, four main categories of digital IPVA victimization where constructed.

In the fourth part, the text was examined more closely to identify any supplementary subjects

and themes, resulting in an additional focus on the co-occurrence of in-person and digital

violence and abuse. In the fifth part of the analysis, the final categorization was performed,

resulting in 13 sub-categories. All the statements in the results section have been anonymized.

Nvivo version 11.2.2 was used for the analysis.

3. Results

All the respondents reported that they used a mobile phone to interact with their intimate

partner(s), and all reported having smart phones. Those who specifically described what

platform(s) they used when communicating with their abusive partner(s) mentioned social

media (Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram), text messaging (SMS, MSN), and phone calls

(including Skype). A few said that they used “all social media.” Whereas all 14 respondents

had experienced digital IPVA victimization, 12 reported that they had also been exposed to

psychological, physical, and/or sexual in-person IPVA (11 girls and one boy).

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The participants’ accounts of digital IPVA victimization where categorized according

to the type(s) of violence and abuse described: harassment, control, monitoring, and sexual

coercion. Within each of these categories, several sub-themes were identified, encompassing

both the focus of the victimization and the characteristics of the victimizing behavior. The

digital victimization described by the respondents is summarized in Table 1.

Table 1 about here.

Table 1. The type of digital violence and abuse described by the participants, including the focus of the

abuse and the digital media behaviors used by the perpetrator.

Type of IPVA Form of abuse Digital media behaviors

Harassment Humiliation Making negative comments on photos

Spreading rumors

Posting derogatory messages on social media

Sending derogatory messages to victim’s friends

Barraging Constantly messaging/contacting

Scaring Threatening physical/gendered violence

Berating Screaming/yelling at victim

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Control Restricting social contact Blocking friends

Pressuring victim to block friends

Calling victim’s friends to gather information

Contacting new romantic interest in order to

sabotage relationship

Restricting self-expression Deleting victim’s SNS profiles/pictures/posts

Restricting autonomy Using screenshots to pressure

Threatening/scary behavior

Monitoring Monitoring whereabouts Making fake accounts and adding victim

Making constant requests

Monitoring social contact Contacting victim’s friends/family

Monitoring personal Constantly checking victim’s social media activity

activities

Checking victim’s phone

Sexual coercion Sexual pressure Pressuring/forcing victim to send intimate pictures

Sexual humiliation Redistributing intimate picture

Sexual threats Threatening in-person rape

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*Though monitoring can be part of stalking, it is not seen as stalking in itself, as stalking is here

understood as a constellation of behaviors (Path & Mullen, 1997), not necessarily representative of the

monitoring behaviors reported by the respondents.

**Controlling and monitoring are categorized as separate behaviors, where controlling is understood to

be a more directed, encroaching behavior, while monitoring is more passive.

*** Social networking sites (SNS).

3.1 Harassment

In total, 12 of the respondents described experiences on digital media that could be categorized

as harassment, mainly humiliation through negative/nasty comments, but also barrages of

messages/phone calls, scary messages, and berating phone calls. The harassment was mainly

targeted directly at the victim; however, in some instances the victim’s social network was

involved, often with the perpetrator sending nasty messages about the victim to the victim’s

friends. The digital harassment also included textual, image-based, and verbal abuse. However,

text messages were the most typical form of harassment described by the participants, with

most of the respondents referring strictly to text messages when describing this type of

victimization. Of note though, while harassment took place through digital media, for some of

the respondents, the digital abuse included threats of in-person physical violence. Julia, a 16-

year-old girl, described how her boyfriend tried to scare her:

But he was trying to act tough, so he sends some messages, he sent some

really tough messages, like ‘If you don’t meet me there and there, I will

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beat you up’. … Said something like that, but he didn’t mean it, he said

it was only a joke, but I thought that… why does he think that he can

write such messages, I asked him, what gives you the right?

Julia experienced harassment through digital media only, and she emphasized that her boyfriend

was a completely different person in the digital arena than in person. When asked if she did

anything in response to the messages, she replied that she showed them to her friends, but not

to her mother. She stressed that if any of the threats had materialized into physical violence, she

would have involved her mother, and that she “drew the line” at in-person physical violence.

Nina, an 18-year-old girl, experienced similar victimization, both through text messages

and phone calls. She described how, initially, the victimization was strictly digital. Nina

recollected how if something she did or did not do made her boyfriend dissatisfied in any way,

she would be barraged with large amounts of abusive text messages and/or constant phone calls.

In the beginning of the relationship, she experienced the constant messages as exciting, but that

soon changed:

He sent texts all the time, all day, long into the night, and in the

beginning that was exciting, we were so in love that it was just funny.

But then he started to get very angry. If I fell asleep without saying

“Good night” when I woke up I would have 20 unanswered phone calls.

[…] And he would get these fits of rage, and maybe the worst was when

he was drunk, when he could call, and if I didn’t answer the phone it

would be a lot of voicemails about him “coming to get me” and stuff

like that.

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This resulted in her having problems sleeping and waking up frequently during the night to

check her phone, afraid that she had missed a text message or call. He would also comment on

her Facebook posts and pictures, often in such a way that only she would understand the cruelty

in the comment. As in Julia’s case, the abusive behavior was never mentioned when Nina and

her boyfriend met in person: “Never in person, we could not talk about it, so he called me,

texted me, or wrote on Facebook.” However, in Nina’s case, the digital IPVA later evolved into

in-person violence and abuse as well, where she was the target of material, emotional, and

sexual victimization.

The centrality of textual communication in facilitating digital IPVA was emphasized by

Camilla, an 18-year-old girl. She was in a relationship which involved abusive, humiliating

behavior between her and her partner, both through the use of digital media and in person. She

emphasized that the text messages hurt the most because her boyfriend would use things he

knew about her to cause more harm when sending the nasty texts: “He knows what hurts me,

because he knows me very well, so he says; he makes an effort to be mean.” Camilla further

described how the lack of emotional cues in text messages increased the level of derogatory

emotional abuse between them:

Yeah, it’s like, when we have argued over text we have been much more

mean to each other, since then we’re not, we can’t see each other, and

then, if we have been arguing, it has ended with one of us starting to

cry, but through text, it’s like, we can’t see each other, and then we

don’t care… then we become, we say many mean things…

Camilla further explained how the arguments that occurred over text messages never involved

any proper resolution of the issues causing the arguments, but rather ended as a result of their

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getting tired of arguing or one person’s falling asleep. For Camilla, the digital IPVA had a more

negative impact than the in-person IPVA. Additionally, she described how she still had many

of the abusive messages and that she would read them over and over, in a sense re-victimizing

herself.

Much of the harassment directed at girls often centered around gendered abuse. Some

of the girls described harassment where they had been called “whore” or “lesbian” or were

accused of “sleeping around” and being unfaithful. Such abuse often seemed to be spurred by

jealousy, as Lisa, a 15-year-old girl, described:

And then he started sending… snaps to me on Snapchat, about me being

a whore… that was following those guys [on social media] and… it was

just jealousy I think, and that was completely insane, the worst of all

was that I hadn’t done anything to make him jealous (laughs), just

following some guys on Instagram…

Harassment also involved topics that the abusive partner knew would hurt the most. For

example, Markus, a 16-year-old boy, was severely harassed by his girlfriend. In the company

of others, she had encouraged and egged him on to commit suicide. One night it became too

much and Markus attempted suicide, but the attempt failed. The morning after, when he woke

up, Markus saw that he had received a text message from his girlfriend:

She had written me a message that “it would have been so much better

for everyone if you had committed suicide.”

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Finally, many of the features of social media were actively used in harassment. Tone, a 17-

year-old girl, explained how Facebook had become the main avenue for her victimization. She

had been with her boyfriend for about a year when, all of a sudden, his behavior changed. First,

he started harassing her in person, and then he took the abuse to Facebook. He went through

her Facebook posts and found pictures and posts from her previous relationship, which he used

to bully and harass her. One day, he called her and told her to log into Facebook:

I was at school, and then he says, “You have to log into Facebook.” […]

And then he had all of a sudden posted a picture of me and [previous

partner] and commented that “My girlfriend is cheating.” And I hadn’t,

it was from a long time ago, and then he started blablabla writing many

nasty things and people started commenting, right, and that wasn’t fun

at all.

Later, the boyfriend created a Facebook group dedicated specifically to harassing her. She

described how she neither tried to access the group nor reported it. The boyfriend subsequently

broke up with her via Facebook.

3.2 Control

Controlling behaviors through the use of digital media were reported by six of the respondents.

These mainly involved controlling whom the victim socialized with and what the victim

said/posted online. The most common form of controlling behavior described by the

participants was being pressured into blocking/deleting contacts from their social networking

sites (SNS)—in most cases, girls were pressured to block or delete boys from their contact lists.

In some instances, the perpetrator did this him/herself. Some respondents also reported that they

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had been pressured into deleting comments/posts they had published on social media before

they started dating their partner. Similarly, there were instances where the perpetrator did this

him/herself. For example, Lisa, a 15-year-old girl, described how, in her first romantic

relationship, her boyfriend had gotten hold of her Instagram password and used this to control

and restrict her digital social interactions:

Yes, he did delete pictures that he didn’t like that I’d posted… just like,

took over my whole life really, and he did the same on Twitter…

because he found out that I used the same password. And after a while,

he even deleted my entire Instagram account.

Lisa’s emphasis on how he “took control of her whole life” by controlling her social media

accounts is telling for how today’s teenagers socialize through the use of digital media. The

social interaction that takes place in the digital arena is a central part of many teenagers’ social

lives (Boyd, 2014). When Lisa tried to break off the relationship, the perpetrator started

spreading rumors about her at school.

Silje, an 18-year-old girl, described how her boyfriend’s controlling behavior included

demanding that she block male friends on her social media accounts. This included blocking

every male person who had commented on her pictures. She was only allowed to keep her male

friends that her boyfriend knew and approved of. Silje described how she “had to stop hanging

out with male friends”:

I would block all boys on Instagram and such things, those were things

that I had to do that I did not like, I was allowed to be friends with boys

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on Facebook, those he knew who [they] were, but I was not allowed to

talk to them…

The controlling behavior thereby occurred both online and offline. Silje also described how her

boyfriend made her go through her entire comment history on her social media accounts and

block every boy that had ever commented or liked any of her posts. This included posts by other

boys that she herself had liked or commented on, effectively controlling her possibilities of

expression on social media. She also said that she had to hide it from him if she talked to other

boys in person:

No, no it was every day, and then I had to talk to him during school, so

I had to talk to him during recess, and if he heard the guys in the

background, I had to tell every guy to be quiet, after school, in the

evenings, at night.

Silje’s boyfriend also actively used social media himself in an attempt to control her contact

with boys. He created a fake Facebook profile in order to get in contact with her friends and

talked to some of them, asking if they were romantically interested in Silje and making it clear

that she had a boyfriend. This form of control, exerted through the use of digital media, whereby

the perpetrator contacted the victim’s friends and social network, with the aim of gathering

information and/or spreading rumors about the victim and controlling the victim’s behavior and

who she or he socialized with, was also reported by other participants. For example, Mirelle, a

16-year-old girl, described how her abusive boyfriend would contact her friends in order to find

out where she was, sometimes also spreading lies about her. For example, she described how,

after they had broken up, he had gotten in contact with a boy she had just started dating: “…

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and then I started seeing someone, but then he [ex-boyfriend] contacted him and said many

nasty things, and I liked him [the new boy] very much.” The new boy ended the relationship

with Mirelle soon after his conversation with her ex-boyfriend. Lene, a 17-years old girl, also

described how her abusive boyfriend had involved others from her social network in his

controlling behaviors. For example, one night, when her boyfriend had been drinking and tried

to call her on the phone, she had refused to answer. This did not stop him:

I hadn’t been in contact with him in two days, as he was drinking and

stuff, so I didn’t give a damn about him, and we [she and her friends]

went out. So then he called me, but I didn’t answer the phone, and then

he tried to get a hold of my mother and a lot of my friends to make them

call me and ask me where I was, but I didn’t tell them because I knew

he had called them in order to have them find out where I was.

Lisa experienced how her boyfriend used her social network in order to control her by

restricting her autonomy. She described how he had taken screenshots of their text messages,

in which she had confided in him about her negative feelings towards certain classmates. He

had then used these screenshots to force her into spending time with him. When she did not

comply, he sent them to the classmates.

3.3 Monitoring

Monitoring was experienced by six of the respondents and involved surveillance of the victim’s

whereabouts, socializing, and activities. Digital media provided ample opportunity for this

monitoring behavior, with perpetrators creating fake profiles and befriending the victim and/or

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people in the victim’s social network, constantly checking the victim’s digital media activity

and phone. Nina reported that she experienced monitoring behavior in her relationship. For

example, her boyfriend had demanded that she be available at all times, and that he know her

whereabouts and who she was with at all times. In her own words,

If I put my phone in flight mode because I’m busy, he will say “No, you

didn’t, it was turned off,” and then he’ll send a lot of text messages,

either from a known number or hidden, and if I answer the phone he

will hang up immediately, because then he knows that I have seen his

texts, and then I was afraid that someone had tagged me in a photo, so

that he would see that I was here [event].

Nina feared anything that could give her boyfriend any clues as to her whereabouts, such as

being tagged or being part of a photo that was posted online, as this would result in him being

angry and abusive. She also described having strong anxiety associated with her mobile phone,

because any phone call or text message she received could be from him. However, as she was

dependent on her phone for socializing and work, it was not an option to stop using it. She

emphasized that because her abusive boyfriend had so many different ways of contacting her

(e.g. Facebook or phone), she feared that she would never be able to relax. This clearly

illustrates how the accessibility offered—or even demanded—when using digital media has

serious implications for victims of IPVA.

Tom, a 17-year-old boy experienced similar monitoring behaviors. He described how

his intimate relationship started off very good, but that after a while it became “a little too

intense with Facebook passwords and who you Snapchat with.” He had been with his girlfriend

for a couple of years when the relationship started deteriorating, causing her to be very jealous.

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She pressured him into sharing his Facebook password, which she then used to monitor his

Facebook activity. She also went through his Snapchat profile to check who he was interacting

with. The monitoring behavior later progressed into her contacting his friends whenever he was

somewhere or was doing something she did not know about. These constant enquiries about his

whereabouts and activities had a severe negative impact on Tom’s state of mind. When asked

about whether or not guys are victims of digital IPVA, he said:

I think that guys are more impacted psychologically, because girls are

good at it; at giving guys feelings of guilt, when they haven’t done

anything. And I think that’s really psychological violence, because it

ruins the day; you get up in the morning and feel like you’ve done

something wrong, when you really haven’t done anything wrong. I

think that’s wrong. It doesn’t sound that bad, but I think that if it ruins

your everyday, things in your everyday kind of lose color, then I think

it’s a serious issue.

In the end, Tom broke up with her.

3.4 Sexual coercion

Three of the respondents, all girls, experienced digital IPVA that could be categorized as sexual

coercion. This victimization centered on sexual pressure and sexual humiliation. Two of the

girls had experienced image-based sexual abuse (McGlynn & Rackley, 2016), whereas one

experienced threats of a sexual nature via text message. The respondents who had experienced

image-based sexual abuse had intimate photos redistributed by their partner without their

consent. In one case, the photo was taken voluntarily, while in the other case it was taken

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without the victim’s consent. Magdalena, an 18-year-old girl, who had experienced severe

physical, psychological, and sexual violence at the hands of her boyfriend, including being

drugged and raped, explained how she had sent a nude photo of herself to him using Snapchat.

He took a screenshot of the photo, thereby storing it without her knowledge. For Magdalena,

his screenshotting the photo was a breach of trust; she emphasized that this was akin to stealing:

“[He took] that photo from me, he did that.” The photo was then redistributed to others. Mia, a

15-year-old girl, explained how her boyfriend initially was nice to her, but that he later

pressured her into sexual intercourse. At the time, she was only 14 years old. He also took a

photo of her breasts and distributed it to a friend, who posted it on The Pirate Bay after having

tried to blackmail her into sending him more revealing, intimate pictures. She refused. Mia’s

experience illustrates one of the unique aspects of digital violence and abuse, as she describes

how the picture got redistributed to a friend of her boyfriend:

Yes, it [the picture getting sent to the friend] didn’t happen until just

recently, maybe a month ago, or maybe more than that. He [the ex-

boyfriend] sent it out, […] he sent it out a long time after we had broken

up.

This is a clear example of the issue of permanence. Anything digital can be stored almost

indefinitely, and one can never be certain whether or not is has been deleted. In this instance,

Mia’s ex-boyfriend redistributed the intimate picture of her long after the relationship was over.

Finally, Julia, who was harassed by her boyfriend, also received sexual threats from

him. She described how when she confronted him with the harassment he would always try to

brush it off as him just joking around. In the situation that led to sexual threats, she initially

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received a text telling her to “look out” or he would come to her door. When she asked him

what he would do, he threatened her with rape. She describes the incident as follows:

One time, when he had been drinking, ha called me and said that he was

going to come over and rape me. But he regretted it the next day, then it

was supposedly some of his friends who had told him to call me.

Just as with the harassment she experienced, the boyfriend acted tough on the phone, but as

soon as she met him, he behaved differently. While she appeared to view most of the harassment

and threats as harmless, she admitted during the interview that she did think about the threats.

3.5 Co-occurrence of in-person IPVA and digital IPVA

All but two of the respondents reported both in-person and digital IPVA victimization.

Furthermore, they described experiencing similar, co-occurring forms of violence and abuse

across the in-person and digital arenas. These included experiences of harassing behavior,

controlling behavior, and/or sexual coercion in person and through digital media (e.g.

derogatory comments, restrictions with regard to socializing, or sexual pressure, both in person

and digitally). Moreover, a few respondents explained how their abusive partner would

post/send comments that appeared harmless to others but that they knew were actually threats

and/or harassment based on their previous experiences in the relationship. One of the

respondents reported that she had experienced sexual coercion both digitally and in person, on

separate occasions, with different boyfriends. One respondent was the victim of controlling

behavior, both in person and digitally, in addition to threats of physical violence over the phone

and instances of physical violence. One of the respondents experienced rumors being spread

about her, both in person and digitally. In all these instances, there seemed to be an interplay

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between the violence and abuse experienced in person and the violence and abuse experienced

digitally.

At the same time, two of the respondents reported experiencing victimization strictly in

the digital arena. In both these cases, digital IPVA occurred frequently, but never in person.

One of these respondents underscored that her abusive boyfriend was a completely different

person in person than he was digitally. While he was often highly aggressive and threatening

on the phone, he could be “really sweet” when he did not have his phone available. She

furthermore described how he would always brush off the digital IPVA as his just joking

around. He would say things like, “it’s just jokes, I don’t mean anything with it, you know I

would never hit you,” in response to having threatened her with physical violence. For her, it

was very confusing that he acted so completely different in person and on digital media.

Furthermore, although the abusive and violent behavior she experienced was confined to the

digital arena, the abuse did include threats of physical violence. Of note, one of the respondents

who experienced co-occurring violence and abuse described how the victimization was initially

confined to the digital arena but was later combined with in-person IPVA.

4. Discussion

The present study provides insight into victimized teenagers’ personal experiences with digital

IPVA and how technology, in some cases, exacerbates and facilitates certain forms of

victimization in intimate relationships. Four forms of digital IPVA were identified in the

participants’ descriptions of their digital victimization: harassment, control, monitoring, and

sexual coercion. Digital IPVA often co-occurred with in-person IPVA.

Similar to findings in previous studies (Draucker & Martsolf, 2010; Korchmaros,

Ybarra, Langhinrichsen-Rohling, Boyd, & Lenhart, 2013; Pew, 2018), the technologies

respondents most commonly reported using in their intimate relationships were mobile phones

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(specifically smart phones), text messages, and SNS, such as Facebook, Instagram, and

Snapchat. Additionally, in line with Stonard et al. (2014), this study found that several aspects

of digital media, such as accessibility, availability of social network, and publicity, facilitated

teenage IPVA victimization.

The most frequently reported form of digital IPVA was harassment, which included

humiliation, barraging, scaring and berating. These types of digital IPVA behaviors,

particularly being the target of constant calls and messages from their abusive partner, are in

line with previous findings in the qualitative literature (e.g., Baker & Carreno, 2016; Draucker

& Martsolf, 2010; Lucero et al., 2014). In this study, harassment was facilitated by the direct

and rapid communication between perpetrator and victim and the availability of social networks

provided by digital media. Furthermore, the use of text messages, in some instances, enhanced

the severity of the harassment, as these messages were more cruel and harmful than the in-

person communication between the partners. For example, one girl described how the lack of

emotional cues in text messages increased the level of derogatory emotional abuse between her

and her boyfriend. This supports Suler’s (2004) theory about how computer-mediated

communication can lower inhibitions, resulting in toxic disinhibition. It may also be seen to

support Lapidot-Lefler and Barak’s (2012) finding that lack of eye contact can enhance the

negative effects of online disinhibition. The respondents described how the abusive partner

would involve the victim’s social network in the abuse, for example by posting nasty messages

on social media for all to see, or by directly sending nasty messages about the victim to his/her

friends. This is in line with Lucero et al.’s (2014) argument that digital media may provide a

new platform for exposing a romantic partner to public scrutiny. Furthermore, the phenomenon

of permanence, where something that is posted or distributed online is hard—if not

impossible—to remove, can cause additional harmful impact (Cecil, 2014). Interestingly, in

this study, a relatively new aspect of the potential harmfulness of digital permanence was

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described. One respondent said that she re-read abusive messages on her phone and that they

still impacted her. She was thereby, in a way, re-victimizing herself. This is in line with

Korchmaros et al. ’s (2013) description of how digital abusive messages often are archived, and

thus can be repeatedly consumed, which again may intensify the victims’ abuse experience.

While the existence of intimate images “out there” can have a severe impact on victims (Cecil,

2014), the potential re-victimizing effect of stored, abusive messages on victims of digital IPVA

is not clear and should be further explored. Of note, however, as pointed out by Korchmaroes

et al. (2013), such messages can be shared with a counselor, which again may provide a unique

possibility to work on the content and effect of the abuse.

Several of the respondents also reported controlling behavior on the part of their

partners. Such abusive behavior often involved taking control of the victim’s social media

accounts, deleting posts/comments, blocking users, and blackmailing. In the majority of cases,

girls described that a boyfriend had done this in an effort to restrict their interaction with other

boys. This is in line with findings from other qualitative studies on dating violence among

adolescents, in which insecurity and jealousy in relation to the partners’ contact with people of

the opposite sex has been found to motivate the abuse behavior (e.g., Baker & Carreno, 2016;

Draucker & Martsolf, 2010; Lucero et al., 2014). Similarly, Barter, McCarry, Berridge, and

Evans (2009) found that control through digital IPVA was often directed at restricting girls’

social interaction, especially with the opposite sex. Because digital media is such a central part

of teenagers’ lives today, with large parts of their social interaction taking place online (Boyd,

2014), controlling someone’s digital activity becomes especially intrusive. Furthermore, it was

found that the availability of the victim’s social network provided new avenues for abusive

behaviors. Beyond simply restricting their partners’ access to their social network, perpetrators

also used that network to gather information about their partners—information which was

subsequently used to victimize them.

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Misuse of available, digital information was also a key aspect of monitoring behaviors.

The respondents described instances where their partner would monitor their whereabouts, who

they socialized with, and what they were doing online, by monitoring their social media

accounts and phones. These types of monitoring behaviors have been extensively reported in

the qualitative literature, and, as with controlling behaviors, often seem to be related to the

partners’ insecurity and jealousy (e.g., Baker & Carreno, 2016; Draucker & Martsolf, 2010;

Lucero et al., 2014, Stonard et al., 2017). As Reed, Tolman, and Safyer (2015) have argued, the

increasing use of digital media provides perpetrators of IPVA with large amounts of

information about their victims’ activities and whereabouts. While the victim can try to limit

what information he/she makes available on social media, the all-pervasive nature of digital

media use in today’s society makes it very difficult to control this information completely (for

example, someone can post something that includes information about the victim without

his/her knowledge). One of the respondents described how she was terrified that someone

would tag her in a photo or a post, revealing where she was or what she had been up to.

Moreover, as much social interaction occurs through digital media, it is difficult for victims of

digital IPVA to stop using digital media all together in order to avoid the violence and abuse.

Victims’ attempts to block perpetrators can be easily overcome as the latter can create fake

profiles, e-mail accounts, and so on that are not blocked.

Finally, the respondents also reported experiencing digital sexual coercion. For some,

this entailed image-based sexual abuse, where intimate images of them were redistributed

against their will. For many teenagers, sending and receiving intimate pictures is a common

activity in an intimate relationship (Wood, Barter, Stanley, Aghtaie, & Larkins, 2015).

However, as noted by Lucero et al. (2014), the volatility of teenage intimate relationships does

not necessarily facilitate safety with regard to sexual activities carried out using digital media.

A relationship that appears to be stable and trustworthy can quickly turn out to be just the

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opposite. While sending an intimate picture to a partner might seem like a good idea in the

moment, the fact that images and texts can be stored, with or without consent, potentially

permanently, introduces the risk that private messages and images might be redistributed. Still,

digital sexual coercion was not confined to image-based sexual abuse. One of the respondents

received rape threats from her boyfriend. In this case, though the abusive behavior was

perpetrated through the use of digital media, it centered on violence that could occur in person.

In a recent study, Kernsmith, Victor, and Smith-Darden (2018) found a positive correlation

between sexting coercion and in-person sexual coercion. A closer look at how digital media is

used in connection with in-person sexual violence and abuse is needed.

The forms of digital abuse identified in this study have also been described in studies of

in-person adolescent IPVA. Here, harassment, control and monitoring are often referred to as

types of psychological IPVA (Foshee, 1996; Orpinas, Nahapetyan, Song, McNicholas, &

Reeves, 2012; Teten, Ball, Valle, Noonan, & Rosenbluth, 2009), whereas sexual pressure,

threats and humiliation are described as forms of sexual IPVA (Bonomi et al., 2012, Glowacz,

Goblet, & Courtain, 2018; Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996). In line with

findings from previous studies on the association between traditional and digital IPVA (Barter

et al., 2017; Borrajo et al., 2015; Temple et al., 2016), it was found here that victimization co-

occurred across the in-person and digital arenas. In addition to this co-occurrence, it was found

that the violence and abuse involved similar and continuing victimization across both arenas,

which also supports findings from previous research (Cutbush, Williams, Miller, Gibbs, &

Clinton-Sherrod, 2012; Zweig et al., 2013). This suggests that digital IPVA in some instances

is experienced as a continuum of violent behaviors, as argued by several researchers (Stonard

et al., 2014; Temple et al., 2016; Van Ouytsel, Walrave, Ponnet, & Temple, 2016). However,

it is worth noting that a few of the respondents reported only digital IPVA victimization.

Moreover, this abuse had never been discussed in person between the partners. Rather, when

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the perpetrators in these relationships met their partners in person, they acted completely

differently, exhibiting no aggression. For example, one girl described how her boyfriend was

‘really sweet’ in person, but highly aggressive and threatening on the phone. The inhibiting

effect of physical presence and body language is emphasized by Suler (2004), as noted earlier.

These two cases, in which there was no co-occurrence of in-person IPVA and digital IPVA,

may indicate that while some individuals are able to inhibit violent and abusive behaviors in in-

person situations, digital media affords them disinhibition, which facilitates their violent and

abusive behavior. At the same time, another respondent in the study reported that the violence

and abuse had started out being strictly digital, but later included in-person IPVA as well. To

date, it is unknown whether digital IPVA can be seen as a precursor to other forms of IPVA

similarly to how some research has found psychological violence to be a precursor to physical

violence (O’Leary, 2001; Schumacher & Leonard, 2005). More research is needed to better

understand the potential dynamics between in-person and digital IPVA and whether

perpetration in either arena should be viewed as a warning signal for the expansion of violence

and abuse into the other.

4.1 Strengths and limitations

The present study adds to the field of technology and IPVA in several ways. First, it is the first

study to have a sample consisting entirely of teenage victims of digital IPVA. This is

noteworthy, because victimized youth is an understudied population which is difficult to reach,

and the personal descriptions provided by these participants represent an important contribution

to our understanding of the dynamics and complexity of the timely and serious subject of digital

IPVA. Second, their narratives provide important insight into the co-occurrence of offline and

online IPVA in this age group. A greater understanding of this co-occurrence can help enable

better and more efficient prevention and intervention efforts. And finally, the inclusion of

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teenage boys’ experiences of digital and in-person IPVA provides important insights into male

experiences of such victimization. However, the study findings should be considered in light of

certain limitations. First, only one respondent was below the age of 16. Thus, younger teenagers’

experiences of digital IPVA were not included. Second, two participants were not given

parental consent to participate. It is unfortunate that younger victims of IPVA who are willing

to participate in research are sometimes not allowed to share their stories.

4.2 Implications

The respondents’ accounts of digital IPVA provide insight into the harmful and intrusive nature

of such victimization, underscoring the need for continued research on the issue, as well as the

importance of including the digital arena in prevention and intervention initiatives. Moreover,

while the direction of causality between in-person and digital IPVA is unclear, parents,

teachers, researchers, and clinicians need to be aware that violence and abuse in the two arenas

are associated (Temple et al., 2016). This is especially important if digital IPVA is a precursor

to in-person IPVA (Barter et al., 2017), as intervention and prevention initiatives aimed at

digital IPVA may reduce/prevent subsequent occurrences of in-person IPVA (Marganski &

Melander, 2015). However, longitudinal studies are warranted to get a better understanding of

the association between in-person and digital IPVA over time.

As noted by Howard et al. (2017), adolescents should be provided with the proper

information, knowledge, and resources to enable them to use digital media in ways that are

positive for their development and at the same time prevent harm, both to themselves and to

others. We need to assist young people in adequately identifying digital IPVA and provide them

with the necessary resources to effectively cope with such victimization. According to Stonard

et al. (2017), schools can play an important role in this work, providing knowledge and

information about both healthy and unhealthy intimate relationships. This applies to both in-

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person and digital interaction (Temple et al., 2016). It is also worth noting that while this study

has focused on the negative aspects of digital media’s role on intimate relationships, such

technology also provides an important arena for prevention and intervention initiatives directed

at such violence and abuse (Zweig & Dank, 2013).

5. Conclusions

This is the first qualitative study of digital IPVA where the entire sample is comprised of

teenagers who themselves have experienced such violence and abuse. The accounts of their

victimization show that digital IPVA is a multifaceted issue, with severe impact on teenagers’

lives, through both direct attacks on individuals and indirect attacks using social networks.

Moreover, for many, digital IPVA co-occurs with in-person IPVA, and the violence and abuse

experienced show similar characteristics whether they take place in person or digitally.

However, aspects of digital media facilitate and exacerbate certain forms of victimization.

Moreover, in some instances, digital media seems to enable violent and abusive behavior that

does not occur outside of the digital arena. Still, whether IPVA occurs in person or digitally, it

nevertheless occurs within the context of an intimate relationship. It is worth noting that a lot

of the violence and abuse described by these adolescents seems to be related to insecurity and

jealousy in these relationships. Efforts to prevent digital IPVA should therefore focus first and

foremost on young people’s understanding of intimacy, sexuality, and what it means to be in

an intimate relationship, and second on enhancing online proficiency. Such a holistic approach

towards the phenomena of IPVA is crucial if we are to better prevent this widespread and

detrimental problem.

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Highlights:

 Teenage intimate partner violence and abuse is affected by the inclusion of digital

media.

 Digital intimate partner violence and abuse is harassment, control, monitoring and

sexual coercion.

 Such violence and abuse often co-occur with in-person violence and abuse.

 Digital media facilitates and exacerbates certain forms of intimate partner violence

and abuse.

 Prevention efforts should focus on teenagers’ knowledge about intimacy and

sexuality.