Understanding Pornography: Interventions for Compulsive Users
(An ITTI Training Program)
Module 7: Impact of Pornography on Children & Youth
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WHY NOW?
In 2006 with the introduction of High-Speed Internet systems the world has been turned upside down when it come to Pornography and the ease of its accessibility
- No one dreamed of this problem which is now at epidemic proportions
- In 2010 the Professional Literature began to be crowded with research on the impact of internet pornography or cybersex
- Today there is enough documentation to convince mental health professionals, pastoral leaders, school officials and governmental agencies that there is a whole new study out there about the prevention of compulsive pornography use by children, teens, young adults, adults, and married partners
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Impact of Pornography on Youth in America
The concern about the use and impact of pornography falls within the responsibility of how each family transmits sexual values and expectations. As a number of experts have cautioned, if the first conversation about sex that you have with your children is the result of discovering their Internet use, then you have not done your job as a parent.
Pornography is value laden and as such should be viewed through the lens of each family’s value structure, just as we raise our children to deal with the many other challenges they will confront. It is at this point that our role as religious leaders and mental health professionals takes on greater clarity; not to stem the tide of pornography – we simply cannot, but to help families prepare their children for the endless stream of sexual messages which permeate our world, some more invasive than others. As we seek to help families avoid or cope with this abuse, so we must help them raise children in a world that seems to change with unprecedented regularity. We then have the gift of preventing problems and not just treating them (Ribner, 2014).
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What is the Current View of Porn by Youth?
In a 2016 study the Barna Group found the following:
- What is Porn? The study found that the most significant factor for considering an image as porn was if the image involved sexual intercourse and that sexual plays an important factor in a person considering an image as porn
- Teens and young adults consider more types of images as porn than do adults
- Teens and young adults consider not recycling more immoral than viewing porn
- Young Adults ages 18-24 are least likely to say that porn is bad for society
- More than half of teens and young adults speak of porn in a way that is completely accepting and only a small percentage talk about porn in a disagreeable way
- Only child pornography and "painful sex" are considered "always wrong" by a majority of people
- Two thirds of teens and young adults have received a sexually explicit image from their girl/boyfriend or friend
- This 2016 study was done by the Barna Group. The Report is called: The Porn Phenomenon: Survey of US Teens and Adults at https://www.barna.com/the-porn-phenomenon/
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What are Pornography Websites?
- In 2008, the company Hitwise catalogued 40,634 websites that distributed pornography (Tancer, 2008).
- According to the research by two neuroscientists in 2010, out of the one million most trafficked websites in the world, 42,337 are sex-related sites (Ogasa & Gaddam, 2011).
- Free websites comprise between 70-80% of the adult material online, typically used as “bait” for pay websites, guiding viewers to premium pay services (Zook, 2007).
- A conservative estimate places 32% of adult membership websites and 58% of free adult websites outside the United States (Zook, 2007).
- 90% of free porn websites and nearly 100% of pay porn websites buy their material rather than create it themselves (Zook, 2007).
- In 2009, the Media Research Center (MRC) examined the most popular YouTube searches for the word “porn,” yielding 330,000 results. The study reported on the top 157 videos, all with one million views or more.
- Two-thirds of the videos advertise themselves as being actual pornography.
- Many videos feature clips from actual porn movies, interviews with porn stars, advertisements for porn sites, and phone sex lines.
- Profanity is commonplace in the titles and comments for the videos.
- There are suggestions of sex with computers, virtual reality sex, sex in multiplayer online video games and the merging of pornography with independent cinema are thing of the future. Perhaps two decades from now the seemingly immovable Internet as the go-to porn distribution tool will be as dead and buried as VHS (Nielsen & Kiss, 2015).
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Numbers of Youth Viewing Pornography
A 2016 review of the research in the field reported that:
- About 46% of US men and 16% of women watch porn in a given week
- Between 6% and 28% of male porn users describe their habit as "problematic"
- Many ex-users report impressive benefits like better sleep, clearer skin and more confidence
- Boys are starting to regularly use porn at an increasingly earlier age of 8 for the youngest in one survey thus it is vital to educate children and teens explaining that pornography may not accurately depict sex and relationships
- Study after study shows that self-identified porn addicts are not watching more porn than other people but have moral values that conflict with their use (Wilson, 2016).
A 2017 study found the following:
- Adolescents aged 15-16 years, especially male adolescents, are the most prone to the development of Internet (pornography) addiction
- Adolescents aged 11-12 years show the lowest level of Internet (Pornography) addiction (Karacic & Oreskovic, 2017).
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Pornography Has Gone Mobile
When 1,521 smartphone owners in the UK. ages 18 and older were surveyed, 24% admitted to having pornographic material on their mobile handset. Of these, 84% of those who were involved in a romantic relationship said their partner did not know about the porn on their handset (CovenantEyes, 2015).
In 2012, 43.8% of adult industry executives and stakeholders believed mobile devices would become consumers’ primary porn-viewing devices (Yagielowicz,2013).
A Juniper Research study has found the global value of the VR (Virtual Reality) adult content market will increase significantly, from $716 million in 2021 to $19 billion in 2026; representing 22% of the global digital adult content market value by 2026 (Jupiter Research, 2021).
Nearly 1 in 5 searches made from mobile devices are for pornography. Furthermore, 24% of smartphone owners have porn on their handset, and of these, 84% said their romantic partners did not know about it (Eldred, 2012).
Teens and young adults in particular, use smartphones, and are therefore at a higher risk of Internet misuse on their mobile devices. One study found that 51% of 18-34-year-olds own smartphones. Meanwhile, 49% of teens use the Internet on a mobile device (Eldred, 2012).
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Action at State & National Levels to block Children’s access to Porn accessible Social Media Sites
As concerns arise regarding the effects of social media usage on children’s mental health, state legislators are introducing measures to protect children while using the internet and internet-based forms of communication, including social media. The legislation includes bills and resolutions that:
- Create study commissions and task forces.
- Require age verification or parental consent to open social media accounts.
- Add digital and media literacy courses or curriculum for K-12 students.
Thirty-five states and Puerto Rico addressed legislation in 2023, and 12 states enacted bills or adopted resolutions such as:
- Arkansas created the Social Media Safety Act to require age verification and parental consent for use of social media. It also clarifies liability for failure to perform age verification for use of social media, for illegal retention of data.
- Illinois adopted a resolution urging the federal government to uphold its duty to create regulations that promote the well-being of minors and protect them from negative and harmful social media algorithms.
- Louisiana enacted the Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation Act.
- Montana banned TikTok in the state.
- New Jersey established the Commission on the Effects of Social Media Usage on Adolescents to study social media usage in and out of public
- In August 2022,up to 95% of teens aged 13 to 17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use them “almost constantly,” the Pew Research Center found.
- A number of other states including Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Utah passed laws in 2023-24 requiring parental consent for children to use social media.
- Unfortunately, in Arkansas, a federal judge in August 2023 blocked enforcement of a law requiring parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts.
- In March 2024 the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas law, leading Pornhub to cut off access to Texans.
- Florida in 2024 passed a law banning social media accounts for children under 14 regardless of parental consent and require parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds.
Georgia: In March 2024 Georgia joined other states in requiring children younger than 16 to have their parents’ explicit permission to create social media accounts. The Georgia bill also aims to shut down porn sites by requiring submission of a digitized identification card or some other government-issued identification. Companies could be held liable if minors were found to access the sites and could face fines of up to $10,000. “It will protect our children,” said Rep. Rick Jasperse, a Jasper Republican who argues age verification will lead porn sites to cut off access to Georgians.
The Georgia bill says:
- social media services would have to use “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify someone’s age by July 1, 2025.
- Services would have to treat anyone who can’t be verified as a minor. Parents of children younger than 16 would have to consent to their children joining a service. Social medial companies would be limited in how they could customize ads for children younger than 16 and how much information they could collect on those children.
- The move comes after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned in May 2024 that social media hasn’t been proven to be safe for young people. Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” and asked tech companies to share data and increase transparency and for policymakers to regulate social media for safety the way they do car seats and baby formula.
Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instragram, announced in 2022 it was taking steps to verify ages. Meta says it provides “age-appropriate experiences” for teens 13-17 on Instagram, including preventing unwanted contact from unknown adults. Dozens of U.S. states, including California and New York, also are suing Meta Platforms Inc., claiming the company harms young people and contributes to a youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.
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Congressional Efforts To Control Access to Social Media
In the US Congress on Friday March 29,2024 Senators gave final approval to Senate Bill 351, which also would ban social media use on school devices and internet services, required porn sites to verify users are 18 or over and mandate additional education by schools on social media and internet use. The House passed the measure 120-45 and the Senate approved it 48-7.
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Sample Congressional Effort:
S.1291 - Protecting Kids on Social Media Act
118th Congress (2023-2024)
Introduced in Senate (04/26/2023) Protecting Kids on Social Media Act
This bill requires social media platforms to verify the age of account holders and limits access to such platforms by children.
Specifically, social media platforms (1) must verify the age of account holders, (2) may not allow an individual to create or continue to use an account unless the individual's age has been verified, and (3) must limit access to the platform for children under the age of 13. Social media platforms may not use or retain any information collected during the age verification process for any other purpose.
Further, platforms must take reasonable steps to (1) require affirmative consent from the parent or guardian of a minor who is at least 13 years old to create an account for the minor on the platform, and (2) provide the parent or guardian with the ability to revoke such consent.
Social media platforms may not use the personal data of an individual in an algorithmic recommendation system unless the individual is at least 18 years old according to the platform's age verification process.
The bill requires the Department of Commerce to establish a voluntary pilot program to provide secure digital identification credentials for individuals to use when verifying their age on social media platforms. Commerce may issue rules for social media companies to enroll in the program.
The bill provides for enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general (or other authorized state officials).
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Helping Parents Have “The Talk” with their Children
Encourage discussions of parents with their children about porn when they are young enough to prevent its use & when they are older not to embarrass or shame them but to get them to recognize the negative impact that getting into porn can be
Help parents be well prepared to conduct these talks with their children have them read the following sections on coping.us Pornography Intervention site, to help them put together their outline for talks with their preschoolers, elementary, middle and high school aged children. Have them look at the following topics on this site to get themselves ready:
1.Introduction to the Issue of Pornography
2.The Neuroscience of Pornography
3.Impact of Pornography on Children and Teens
4.Impact of Pornography on Young Adults
5.Websites, Monitoring Sites and Videos To Be Used in Pornography Intervention
6.References on Impact of Pornography
7.References on Treatment for Compulsive Use of Pornography
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Encourage Parents to make their Home Safe from ‘Pornography & Other Negative Materials on Internet
Make homes safe from cybersex invasion through the use of Monitoring and Filtering systems such as Covenant Eyes which are listed below:
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Help Parents Understand Stages of Kids’ Involvement with Porn
When Your Child is Looking at Porn by Luke Gilkerson (2013) a free Ebook from Covenant Eyes)
Stage 1: Experimentation & curiosity: Most initial porn viewing that happens in childhood, or even teen years, is born out of curiosity. Boys want to know what the girls look like with no clothes on & vice versa. Before puberty, it is natural for boys & girls to be curious about gender & sexual differences. During puberty, as sexual feelings grow, it is also common for boys & girls to be drawn by provocative images online, desiring to see more
Stage 2: Regular use of masturbation: In this stage the child has gone from curiosity to “using” porn or online chatting for sexual gratification & orgasm. While this stage is more common among teens, younger children can also enter this stage. In this stage, while there may be feelings of shame, the porn use is seen as recreational.
Stage 3: Risky use: What constitutes “risky use” is not the same for all children. The almost undetectable shift into this stage happens when kids start to seek porn despite the negative consequences. They might stay up late into the night binging on porn, losing sleep & the ability to focus during the daytime, only to return to porn the next night. They might start looking at porn in riskier settings (at school, with a parent’s smartphone, when someone could walk in at any moment, when they should be watching a younger sibling, etc.). Getting caught is less of a concern to them & fear of it becomes part of the “high” they get from the experience.
Stage 4: Dependence and Addiction-Like Use: Masturbating to pornography taps into the neurocircuitry of the brain, signaling the release of dopamine, serotonin, opiates, oxytocin, and other hormones and neurotransmitters. This hormonal cocktail is part of the body’s natural response to sexual activity, but when combined with graphic porn, the brain experiences a sexual “high” at unnatural levels. Those who have developed an addictive relationship to pornography experience an overwhelming craving for porn, seemingly uncontrollable sexual fantasies & even withdrawal symptoms. The types of porn that used to satisfy no longer do; harder and more graphic pornography is sought
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Realities of Pornography Parents Need to Face
Exposure to pornography is probably unavoidable as long as kids have access to the internet be it by computer, smart phones, ipads, iphones etc., but pornography problems are preventable
- Recent accounts report that children as young as 8 years of age have been exposed to pornography online
- As online pornography/sex materials expanded, a study in 2016 found links between Internet addiction, engagement in online erotica (including pornography usage & usage of sex-based Internet chat sites) & engagement in risky online sexual behaviors (sending sexually-explicit pictures to those known only online; sexting) & expecting to engage in offline sex with those known only online which has been exacerbated by the onslaught of Internet sex chat sites (Drouin et al., 2016).
- Research has also demonstrated that Adolescents aged 15-16 years, especially male adolescents, are the most prone to the development of Internet addiction, whereas adolescents aged 11-12 years show the lowest level of Internet addiction (Karacic & Oreskovic, 2017).
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Research has shown that:
1.Pornography and related sexual media can influence sexual violence, sexual attitudes, moral values & sexual activity of children
2.Peer-to-peer-file-sharing leads to a tremendous amount of inadvertent & unintentional exposure of children to pornography & other adult sexual media & that these networks depend on these young people constructing their own sexualized media environment
3.But research has demonstrated that a warm and open parent-child relationship is the most important nontechnical means that parents can use to deal with the challenges of the sexualized media
4.That open parent-child channels for communicating about sexual and media experiences, sex education at home or school & parental participation with children on the Internet are constructive influences (Greenfield & Calvert, 2004).
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10 Recommendations for Parents
1.Not give a smartphone to a child until age 14 or older
2.Not have computers or other electronic devices in their children's room but rather in public spaces and that bedrooms are to be used for school studying & sleep.
3.Check daily the log of site visitation on computers & electronic devices used by children
4.Talk with the parents of your children's friends & update them on the realities of internet pornography mass production
5.Recognize that up to 90% of pornography is not commercial but rather from amateur production & distribution-such as through sexting
6.Get to know the friends & colleagues their children associate with so as to monitor if these friends are engaging in pornography related behaviors
7.Arrange to monitor the computer & all electronic devices in the home
8.Be cautious about their children freely going to public libraries or other public facilities which have free access to the computers & the internet
9.Be cautious with their own smartphones, ipads, iphones, laptops, computers etc. so that their children are not utilizing them to get to undesirable websites
10.Work hard to improve the communications with their children to keep the lines of communications open so that their children can feel free & not be shamed if they bring to their parents' attention their encounters & use of pornography be it online or not.
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Helping Parents Strengthen Their Relationship with Their Children to Weather the Cyber Storms
Pathfinder Parenting: Tools for Raising Responsible Children at: http://coping.us/pathfinderparenting.html written well before the internet era, updated but unfortunately did not directly address the issue of Online Compulsive Pornography Use. However, its tools are very relevant to this issue & these principles will work well with parents dealing with their children’s potential or current use of pornography:
P - Principles of Pathfinder Parenting
A - Activating Children's Self-Esteem Over The Lifespan
T - Tracking Pathfinder Structures for Children
H - Hugging Children to Create a Healthy Bond
F - Formulating Behavioral Consequences to Encourage Personal Responsibility in Children
I - Intervening in Loss Issues Facing Children
N - Negotiating to Advocate for Children's Rights & Needs
D - Discussing Issues with Feelings Oriented Communication
E - Establishing Healthy Boundaries with Children - Releasing Ourselves of Shame and Guilt Through Self-Forgiveness
R - Releasing Ourselves of Shame and Guilt Through Self-Forgiveness
P - Principles of Pathfinder Parenting: covers guidelines on how to relate to children in a responsible way so that there is never “yelling, screaming, ranting or raving” going on but rather rational calm & supportive communications which lead kids to accept personal responsibility for their own behaviors by use of natural & logical consequences
A - Activating Children's Self-Esteem Over The Lifespan: covers guidelines to follow over children’s lifetime to encourage, support & enhance their self-esteem
T - Tracking Pathfinder Structures for Children: give parents directions for the positive steps they can take at each stage of their children’s development to insure that by the time they are old enough to deal with the internet &its enticements that they will trust & respect their parents’ judgment as to what is best for them & to accept the natural & logical consequences established to maintain health boundaries & goal directed behaviors
H - Hugging Children to Create a Healthy Bond: encourages parents to build an emotional bond with their children which can be relied upon when the need for parental support & guidance are needed especially when setting up family boundaries concerning use of the internet, mobile devices & other cyber activities
F - Formulating Behavioral Consequences to Encourage Personal Responsibility in Children: provides parents with a better understanding of what it takes to use natural & logical consequences to help their children grow in personal responsibility taking
I - Intervening in Loss Issues Facing Children: covers a variety of potential loss issues which parents need to help their children cope with during their lifetimes so as not to escape in self-destructive behaviors such as compulsive pornography use
N - Negotiating to Advocate for Children's Rights & Needs: encourages parents with steps to take to get out there & negotiate with those who educate, train, coach, and preach to their children to support measures to ensure safety & well-being of their children in this pornography epidemic
D - Discussing Issues with Feelings Oriented Communication: which is a short course for parents on how to effectively communicate with their children to insure they are on board with the parents & to insure their children are safe and living their lives in a healthy responsible way when it comes to such things as internet, mobile devices and other cyber activities
E - Establishing Healthy Boundaries with Children: Guidelines and Tools for parents to utilize to assist their children to establish healthy boundaries in their lives which speaks directly to the need to establish health boundaries in their use of the internet, mobile devices and other cyber activities.
R - Releasing Ourselves of Shame and Guilt Through Self-Forgiveness: helps parents recognize that: “they can only do what they can do, given the nature of imperfect humans” & given that “life is not always fair.” Parent need to self-heal so that they can more appropriately confront and deal with the realities of pornography use by their children especially if they have been late in intervening with their children concerning this issue
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Resources For Parents to Use with Children
Covenant Eyes E-Books for Parents
Books for Parents to Use With Their Children
Arterburn, S., Stoeker, F. & Yorkey, M. (2002). Every young man’s battle: Strategies for victory in the real world of sexual temptation. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press
Jenson, K.A., Poyner, G. & Fox, D. (2014). Good Pictures, Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today's Young Kids. Richland, WA: Glen Cove Press
Wilson, G. (2014). Your brain on porn: Internet pornography and the emerging science of addiction. London: Commonwealth Publishing.
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References
Drouin, M., Miller, D., Wehle, S. M. J., & Hernandez, E. (2016). Why do people lie online? “Because everyone lies on the Internet”. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 134–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.052
Gilkerson, L. (2013) When Your Child is Looking at Porn - a free Ebook from Covenant Eyes
Greenfield, P.M. & Calvert, S. L. (Eds.) (2004). Electronic technology and human development: A tribute to Rodney R. Cocking. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 25 (6).
Karacic, S. & Oreskovic, S (2017). Internet addiction through the phase of adolescence: A questionnaire study. JMIR Mental Health, 4(2), e11. doi:10.2196/mental.5537
Nielsen, E.J. & Kiss, M. (2015). Sexercising our opinion on porn: A virtual discussion. Psychology & Sexuality, 6(3), 118-139. doi.org/10.1080/19419899.2014.984518
Ogas, O., & Gaddam, S. (2011). A billion wicked thoughts: What the world's largest experiment reveals about human desire. Dutton/Penguin Books.
Ribner, D. S. (2014). The pornography question. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 29(4), 375-376. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2014.884276
Tancer, B. (2008). Click. Hyperion Books ISBN 9781306749756 (ISBN10: 1306749751)
Wilson, G. (2012). The great porn experiment. TEDxGlasgohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU
Zook, M. (2007). Report on the location of the Internet adult industry, in Jacobs, K., Janssen, M. & Pasquinelli, M., 2007) C’Lick me: A netporn studies reader. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 103-121. Retrieved at: http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/24.pdf
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