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Studies show that half of 11 to 13-year-olds have seen pornography at some point. What's missing from that stat is where they saw porn. Reddit, Twitter, Instag

Studies show that half of 11 to 13-year-olds have seen pornography at some point. What's missing from that stat is where they saw porn. Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Imgur, etc are full of porn but aren't technically porn sites. If that's where kids are accessing porn then blocking porn sites will not fix the problem. Unless you understand what the problem actually is there will be no way to fix it.

IIAOPSW 5y ago
>Unless you understand what the problem actually is there will be no way to fix it. Oh that's easy. The problem is with society. No one is in any way damaged or traumatized cause they saw some sex on a screen at approximately 13 years old. Its ridiculous we go through the intrusive charade of trying to stop them. The problem is there is no problem.
- nottorp 5y ago
  Usually when politicians ressurect "think of the children" initiatives they want to distract attention from something. What's the current UK scandal, besides the obvious ongoing BRExit consequences?
  - onion2k 5y ago
    What's the current UK scandal, besides the obvious ongoing BRExit consequences? Unfortunately the maximum POST size Chrome allows limits my response to 4GB so I won't be able to cover it all.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    Tldr news UK is pretty good at matter-of-fact summaries of those: https://youtube.com/c/TLDRNews https://youtube.com/c/TLDRNews
  - jamessb 5y ago
    > What's the current UK scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate
- MathCodeLove 5y ago
  This is extremely dismissive of the issue, which does exist to some extent, even if its often over blown. The problem isn't "13 year olds being traumatized because they see sex on a screen" but "13 year olds developing porn addiction alongside their burgeoning sexuality". Porn addiction is a very real issue and todays youth is especially susceptible to it. Today a 13 y/o boy can see more breasts in an hour than every one of his prior-digital age male ancestors have seen combined. Its an absolute stimulus overload.
  - Mindwipe 5y ago
    > Porn addiction is a very real issue It's literally highly contested if it even exists. The evidence base is extremely poor.
    - changxi_hn 5y ago
    - MathCodeLove 5y ago
      What's contested is if its the porn itself that causes the addiction or the feedback loop and easy access is what leads to compulsive consumption. No mainstream psychological organization is saying that there are no addictive or compulsive behaviors associated with excess porn consuption, just that it doesnt meet the critia as a medically diagnosed addiction and is closer to a compulsion. For laymen however, referring to it as an addiction is what most accurately encompasses its impact on those who become compulsive consumers of it.
      - sdze 5y ago
        Porn addiction is a marketing gimmick from the sphere of „nofap“ and co snakeoil salesmen.
        tanseydavid 5y ago
        Can you point to any real world instance where someone is "marketing" NOFAP and profiting (or attempting to profit) from it? This assertion seems odd to me. More importantly: you should not assume that just because you do not suffer from porn addiction that others do not suffer from it.
- yorwba 5y ago
  When I was a child, I once read a novel that featured a rape scene. While I had no idea what rape was, it was described in enough detail to be horrifying to read, so much so that I still remember it now. If it'd been a video, it'd probably have been much worse. Now I don't think that book should've been locked away in a section of the library inaccessible to children, but that doesn't mean it's absolutely safe for children to consume content intended for adults.
- onion2k 5y ago
  No one is in any way damaged or traumatized cause they saw some sex on a screen at approximately 13 years old. I don't think that's necessarily true. People are influenced by what they see (advertising wouldn't work if they weren't...). It's certainly possible that watching porn makes people want to emulate what they've watched. As consenting adults that's fine, but I don't think we really know what impact that has on younger people, and it would be irresponsible to just say it doesn't have any impact without studying it (just as it is to say the opposite.) I don't think there's anything really wrong with wanting to protect children and limit what they see and do until they're capable of understanding themselves well enough to deal with what they've seen. But I definitely think it has to be done in a way that actually works. This policy almost certainly won't, so it's a giant waste of time.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- davidgh 5y ago
  There are a variety of documented undesirable side effects of heavy pornographic use [0],[1], including issues with mental health, sexual disfunction, and the ability to maintain normal romantic relationships. It may be hard to stop, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7835260/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7835260/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/
  - vidarh 5y ago
    Skimming these, neither of those papers appears to document any demonstrable links. They're relying on self reporting in surveys and case studies that seems to produce what is at best correlation, potentially heavily biased by the self-reporting from people who at least judging by the case studies I skim appears to have to some degree self-diagnosed issues they may or may not have been right about.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - davidgh 5y ago
      I made a previous comment that I deleted because it was a bit sarcastic which doesn’t help the conversation. More seriously: If you’re raising children, do you attempt to place safeguards in your family to prevent the potential outcomes discussed in the papers, or do you dismiss them because the correlations aren’t strong enough? Never before in human history has the volume and type of pornography been so universally available. We’re in brand new territory here, and I think it’s worth paying attention to even self-reported anecdotes as the science is still being settled.
      - vidarh 5y ago
        I dismiss them because there's literally decades worth of research into the effects of porn which to my knowledge has failed to come up with anything more than very minor effects, and when the best that's coming up now is some poorly constructed survey papers trying to infer things from self-reporting it's a strong indication there's nothing worth paying attention to, given the amount of effort and money that has been poured into it from groups with a strong interest in finding something. If I trusted self-reported anecdotes I'd also seek to protect my family against ghosts, extra-terrestrial probing sessions and vengeful gods, among a long range of other risks I don't take seriously. If you can't provide evidence that gives a stronger indication of a damaging effect than that, I'll treat it the same way I threat those risks. If anything, if those studies are the best you can find it reassures me that the risks are near non-existent.
ralfd 5y ago
Side note: Recently a teacher posted a thread on Reddit, that while discussing social media he mentioned Reddit and his class snickered. They teased him „Mr teacher are you a Reddit user?“ which he confusingly acknowledged to more snickering. He finally found out that teenagers regarded Reddit as a porn site like pornhub! Interesting perspective and maybe generational divide: if you are not a geek with special interest hobbies and reason to visit subreddits, you only know it from nsfw stuff?
- tekknik 5y ago
  Give humans 5 mins with any new technology, they’ll use it to make porn.
- ilaksh 5y ago
  Personally I think those are just ignorant teenagers.
- traveler01 5y ago
  Reddit is also for memes.
Mindwipe 5y ago
> What's missing from that stat is where they saw porn. Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Imgur, etc are full of porn but aren't technically porn sites. If that's where kids are accessing porn then blocking porn sites will not fix the problem. The proposed legislation is insane, but it also requires all of those sites to implement age verification.
frontman1988 5y ago
This is true. India has blocked a lot of major porn sites. This has however led to creation of porn sharing whatsapp/telegram groups since one person downloads the porn via VPN and then shares it to all. This inturn has led to sharing of even more shadier porn and hasn't prevented teens from accessing porn. Sadly this has lead to a couple of horrific cases of minors raping minors: https://timesofindia.com/city/raipur/chhattisgarh-8-year-old-girl-raped-for-2-months-by-7-minors-after-porn-watching-sessions/articleshow/89378055.cms https://timesofindia.com/city/raipur/chhattisgarh-8-year-old... I guess sex education and teaching about consent at an early age is the only thing that can be done.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  I guess sex education and teaching about consent at an early age is the only thing that can be done. If there has been adequate adult supervision, the eight year old girl would not have been repeatedly raped for two months.
donatj 5y ago
I think the half statistic is way too low. When I was in elementary school in the early 90s, everyone had seen a friends dads magazines. I’m sure it’s close to 100% these days.
Proven 5y ago
jseliger 5y ago
Soon, we'll see "Studies show that the legal requirement to verify users has led teens to master using VPNs."
- vidarh 5y ago
  Teens already master it. Many preteens master it just fine. My son had VPNs set up to bypass region locks on anime and bypass bans on game servers by the time he was 10. It's adults that'll need to learn. I foresee a lot of awkward conversations with parents trying to ask theirs kids how to set up VPNs while pretending it's for a different purpose.
MisterTea 5y ago
Before the internet you had a janky friend who was able to raid their parents porn stash or older brother/cousin who could get it. Porn magazines were prominently displayed along other magazines in news stands and candy stores. The usual approach was a really janky friend would casually enter, grab one and run out. There was always porn kicking around for kids to find/steal.
slightwinder 5y ago
So just ban porn on reddit&co. for users without age-check, too. Shouldn't that already be the case anyway?
akomtu 5y ago
A bunch of stubborn purists have discovered that kids know more than they are "supposed" to know. I remember, I knew pretty much everything at the age of 6, and that was in a very strict and stubborn family.

IIAOPSW 5y ago

>Unless you understand what the problem actually is there will be no way to fix it. Oh that's easy. The problem is with society. No one is in any way damaged or traumatized cause they saw some sex on a screen at approximately 13 years old. Its ridiculous we go through the intrusive charade of trying to stop them. The problem is there is no problem.

nottorp 5y ago
Usually when politicians ressurect "think of the children" initiatives they want to distract attention from something. What's the current UK scandal, besides the obvious ongoing BRExit consequences?
- onion2k 5y ago
  What's the current UK scandal, besides the obvious ongoing BRExit consequences? Unfortunately the maximum POST size Chrome allows limits my response to 4GB so I won't be able to cover it all.
- viraptor 5y ago
  Tldr news UK is pretty good at matter-of-fact summaries of those: https://youtube.com/c/TLDRNews https://youtube.com/c/TLDRNews
- jamessb 5y ago
  > What's the current UK scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate
MathCodeLove 5y ago
This is extremely dismissive of the issue, which does exist to some extent, even if its often over blown. The problem isn't "13 year olds being traumatized because they see sex on a screen" but "13 year olds developing porn addiction alongside their burgeoning sexuality". Porn addiction is a very real issue and todays youth is especially susceptible to it. Today a 13 y/o boy can see more breasts in an hour than every one of his prior-digital age male ancestors have seen combined. Its an absolute stimulus overload.
- Mindwipe 5y ago
  > Porn addiction is a very real issue It's literally highly contested if it even exists. The evidence base is extremely poor.
  - changxi_hn 5y ago
  - MathCodeLove 5y ago
    What's contested is if its the porn itself that causes the addiction or the feedback loop and easy access is what leads to compulsive consumption. No mainstream psychological organization is saying that there are no addictive or compulsive behaviors associated with excess porn consuption, just that it doesnt meet the critia as a medically diagnosed addiction and is closer to a compulsion. For laymen however, referring to it as an addiction is what most accurately encompasses its impact on those who become compulsive consumers of it.
    - sdze 5y ago
      Porn addiction is a marketing gimmick from the sphere of „nofap“ and co snakeoil salesmen.
      - tanseydavid 5y ago
        Can you point to any real world instance where someone is "marketing" NOFAP and profiting (or attempting to profit) from it? This assertion seems odd to me. More importantly: you should not assume that just because you do not suffer from porn addiction that others do not suffer from it.
yorwba 5y ago
When I was a child, I once read a novel that featured a rape scene. While I had no idea what rape was, it was described in enough detail to be horrifying to read, so much so that I still remember it now. If it'd been a video, it'd probably have been much worse. Now I don't think that book should've been locked away in a section of the library inaccessible to children, but that doesn't mean it's absolutely safe for children to consume content intended for adults.
onion2k 5y ago
No one is in any way damaged or traumatized cause they saw some sex on a screen at approximately 13 years old. I don't think that's necessarily true. People are influenced by what they see (advertising wouldn't work if they weren't...). It's certainly possible that watching porn makes people want to emulate what they've watched. As consenting adults that's fine, but I don't think we really know what impact that has on younger people, and it would be irresponsible to just say it doesn't have any impact without studying it (just as it is to say the opposite.) I don't think there's anything really wrong with wanting to protect children and limit what they see and do until they're capable of understanding themselves well enough to deal with what they've seen. But I definitely think it has to be done in a way that actually works. This policy almost certainly won't, so it's a giant waste of time.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
davidgh 5y ago
There are a variety of documented undesirable side effects of heavy pornographic use [0],[1], including issues with mental health, sexual disfunction, and the ability to maintain normal romantic relationships. It may be hard to stop, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a problem. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7835260/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7835260/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/
- vidarh 5y ago
  Skimming these, neither of those papers appears to document any demonstrable links. They're relying on self reporting in surveys and case studies that seems to produce what is at best correlation, potentially heavily biased by the self-reporting from people who at least judging by the case studies I skim appears to have to some degree self-diagnosed issues they may or may not have been right about.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - davidgh 5y ago
    I made a previous comment that I deleted because it was a bit sarcastic which doesn’t help the conversation. More seriously: If you’re raising children, do you attempt to place safeguards in your family to prevent the potential outcomes discussed in the papers, or do you dismiss them because the correlations aren’t strong enough? Never before in human history has the volume and type of pornography been so universally available. We’re in brand new territory here, and I think it’s worth paying attention to even self-reported anecdotes as the science is still being settled.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      I dismiss them because there's literally decades worth of research into the effects of porn which to my knowledge has failed to come up with anything more than very minor effects, and when the best that's coming up now is some poorly constructed survey papers trying to infer things from self-reporting it's a strong indication there's nothing worth paying attention to, given the amount of effort and money that has been poured into it from groups with a strong interest in finding something. If I trusted self-reported anecdotes I'd also seek to protect my family against ghosts, extra-terrestrial probing sessions and vengeful gods, among a long range of other risks I don't take seriously. If you can't provide evidence that gives a stronger indication of a damaging effect than that, I'll treat it the same way I threat those risks. If anything, if those studies are the best you can find it reassures me that the risks are near non-existent.

ralfd 5y ago

Side note: Recently a teacher posted a thread on Reddit, that while discussing social media he mentioned Reddit and his class snickered. They teased him „Mr teacher are you a Reddit user?“ which he confusingly acknowledged to more snickering. He finally found out that teenagers regarded Reddit as a porn site like pornhub! Interesting perspective and maybe generational divide: if you are not a geek with special interest hobbies and reason to visit subreddits, you only know it from nsfw stuff?

tekknik 5y ago
Give humans 5 mins with any new technology, they’ll use it to make porn.
ilaksh 5y ago
Personally I think those are just ignorant teenagers.
traveler01 5y ago
Reddit is also for memes.

Mindwipe 5y ago

> What's missing from that stat is where they saw porn. Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, Imgur, etc are full of porn but aren't technically porn sites. If that's where kids are accessing porn then blocking porn sites will not fix the problem. The proposed legislation is insane, but it also requires all of those sites to implement age verification.

frontman1988 5y ago

This is true. India has blocked a lot of major porn sites. This has however led to creation of porn sharing whatsapp/telegram groups since one person downloads the porn via VPN and then shares it to all. This inturn has led to sharing of even more shadier porn and hasn't prevented teens from accessing porn. Sadly this has lead to a couple of horrific cases of minors raping minors: https://timesofindia.com/city/raipur/chhattisgarh-8-year-old-girl-raped-for-2-months-by-7-minors-after-porn-watching-sessions/articleshow/89378055.cms https://timesofindia.com/city/raipur/chhattisgarh-8-year-old... I guess sex education and teaching about consent at an early age is the only thing that can be done.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
I guess sex education and teaching about consent at an early age is the only thing that can be done. If there has been adequate adult supervision, the eight year old girl would not have been repeatedly raped for two months.

donatj 5y ago

I think the half statistic is way too low. When I was in elementary school in the early 90s, everyone had seen a friends dads magazines. I’m sure it’s close to 100% these days.

Proven 5y ago

jseliger 5y ago

Soon, we'll see "Studies show that the legal requirement to verify users has led teens to master using VPNs."

vidarh 5y ago
Teens already master it. Many preteens master it just fine. My son had VPNs set up to bypass region locks on anime and bypass bans on game servers by the time he was 10. It's adults that'll need to learn. I foresee a lot of awkward conversations with parents trying to ask theirs kids how to set up VPNs while pretending it's for a different purpose.

MisterTea 5y ago

Before the internet you had a janky friend who was able to raid their parents porn stash or older brother/cousin who could get it. Porn magazines were prominently displayed along other magazines in news stands and candy stores. The usual approach was a really janky friend would casually enter, grab one and run out. There was always porn kicking around for kids to find/steal.

slightwinder 5y ago

So just ban porn on reddit&co. for users without age-check, too. Shouldn't that already be the case anyway?

akomtu 5y ago

A bunch of stubborn purists have discovered that kids know more than they are "supposed" to know. I remember, I knew pretty much everything at the age of 6, and that was in a very strict and stubborn family.