Adolescent Sexting in Romantic Relationships and Daily Positive and Negative Affect Dynamics: A Dyadic Intensive Longitudinal Study.

Sexting among adolescents has received considerable scholarly and public attention, with predominant emphasis on its potential psychological and physical risks. However, emerging research suggests that sexting, particularly within the context of romantic relationships, may also be associated with positive emotional experiences. Despite growing interest, limited research has examined adolescents' sexting as it occurs in their daily lives and its implications for both individual and dyadic emotional functioning. The present study employed an intensive longitudinal dyadic design to investigate associations between sexting and daily affect among adolescent romantic partners. A sample of 88 heterosexual adolescent couples (M age = 16.42, SD = 0.98; 44.1% White, 42.4% Hispanic/Latino/a/x) completed biweekly diary assessments over 12 weeks (n = 2,112 observations). Advanced longitudinal dyadic data modeling was used to estimate same-day and lagged associations between sexting and positive and negative affect. Results indicated that girls' sexting was related to higher positive affect in both themselves and their partners on the same day. Boys' sexting was related to increased partner positive affect on the same day, but also to decreased partner positive affect one week later. For negative affect, boys' sexting was associated with lower same-day negative affect for themselves, but increased negative affect in both themselves and their partners at subsequent time points. These findings underscore the temporal and dyadic nature of sexting, suggesting that while it may be immediately uplifting for both partners, it can also give rise to delayed emotional costs.