Not only adults are exposed to porn, but also adolescents and - shockingly - even children, and they are getting younger. Most of them have their first contact with pornographic content at the age of 11, although some already at the age of eight or even six - experts alerted at the conference "Social and developmental consequences of pornography" organized by the Your Case Association. Access to this type of content yes have very dangerous consequences, therefore they call for it to be significantly reduced.
Contact withpornographyhas younger and younger children. The research conducted on over 5,300 junior high school students (2nd and 3rd grade) from 7 provinces shows that 61 percent. boys and 42 percent. of girls, the first contact with pornography was behind him at the age of 11. Almost half of the boys (46%) come into contact with pornography from several to several dozen times a month. Among girls, every fifth high school student (21%) has contact with pornography. Therefore, at such a young age, we deal with the phenomenon of abuse and addiction to pornography, although it happens that eight- or even six-year-olds come to the office for consultation and therapy. Contact with pornography is facilitated by rapidly developing technological thought. Currently, almost every home has at least one (and usually several) devices with an Internet connection. It is the Internet that is the main (72% of cases) source of access to pornography for children and adolescents, including 19% of them. internet in the cell. In addition, in most cases (79%) they come into contact with pornography at home. Less often at school (9%) or at a friend's home (5%) or in other places.
Pornography - dangerous consequences
Watching pornography is not - as some argue - harmless. It is also not a natural and necessary stage in the development of a young person. On the contrary - watching pornography by children may harm their psyche - there may be an increase in the level of anxiety, hyperactivity, the appearance of neurotic and then depressive symptoms. There may also be problems with sleep, headaches, apathy and nausea - and these are already symptoms of porn saturation.
Children and adolescents are at increased risk of becoming addicted to pornography
Regular contact withpornography leads to permanent physical and chemical changes in the brain, argues Dr. Donald L. Hilton, jr of Neurosurgical Associates of San Antonio. These changes are comparable to those in drug and alcohol addicts, which require therapy and treatment.
Children watching pornography can also have long-term effects - on attitudes and beliefs about gender and sex. Both boys and girls start to think of women as sexual objects - they are objectified. In addition, there is a detachment of sex as an activity from the sphere of affection, tenderness, closeness, a very important need for attachment and security.
This will be useful to youPornography on the Internet - Statistics
- there are over 4.2 million pornographic sites in the world (they constitute 12% of the entire Internet resource). Every month, on average, between 600,000 and 700,000 Polish children aged 7-14 visit such websites
- 68 million inquiries a day are for pornographic content, which is 25 percent. all inquiries. The most searched are videos and photos with this content
- monthly downloads of about 1.5 million pornographic files
Children should be restricted from accessing pornography
The Your Sprawa Association suggests, inter alia, that all internet providers introduce technological solutions that will make it difficult for children and adolescents to contact dangerous content on the Internet. Also, the solution is to disable premium rate SMSes by default, which allows children to purchase pornographic videos mobile. It would also be advisable to exclude the content category "18+" on the internet accessible via wi-fi in all schools and other networks provided in public places (eg offices, libraries, sports facilities). Another proposal is to tighten the penal policy in the field of penalizing activities consisting in actively reaching children and adolescents through marketing and advertising of pornography.
This will be useful to youThe Your Sprawa Association (STS) was established to protect public space against obscenity, sexualization and objectification of women, vulgarity and broadly understood violations of good manners in advertising and the media. He also works to protect children from pornography. More information can be found at www.twojasprawa.org.pl