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Only if it falls on them. Stack your DVDs and magazines carefully, folks. More substantively: When divided into "pro-impact" and "no-impact" groups for the "im

by aaronem 13y ago

Only if it falls on them. Stack your DVDs and magazines carefully, folks. More substantively: When divided into "pro-impact" and "no-impact" groups for the "improvised debate" mentioned in the article, the former camp is described as having essentially parroted all the various arguments their elders make for pornography being bad for teenagers, while the latter camp had no such arguments for the position they were assigned to defend. Segal is (somewhat) careful to avoid explicitly drawing any inferences from that, but the obvious implication is that the "pro-impact" camp is correct ("Given that pornography is emotionally charged, it would be shocking if it had no impact.") Leaving aside the question of what a small cohort of randomly selected 16-to-18-year-olds, an age not generally noted for its keen introspective abilities, can be expected to know about much of anything, I'd be curious to find out whether the cohort which produced this result had had anything like equal exposure to both sides of the debate, or whether instead the "pro-impact" kids drubbed the "no-impact" ones because only the former had been fed lines beforehand.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
> "Given that pornography is emotionally charged, it would be shocking if it had no impact." I realize you're not making that argument yourself, but it strikes me as exceptionally weak. The "obvious" response is that it's been extremely difficult to document any experiences as having measurable impacts on children (starvation is a big exception, but hopefully it's not too difficult to see what might make that different...). So the baseline expectation should be a fairly strong confidence that no matter what it is that you're showing children, the effect is likely too small to measure.
iSnow 13y ago
>Leaving aside the question of what a small cohort of randomly selected 16-to-18-year-olds This stood out for me as a very weak part of the article. Cite studies and meta-studies that substantiate some relatively minor impact of porn on personal development and then turn around, toss the scientific way of thinking and take some random sample of teenagers in a non-controlled environment as the ultimate measurement.

by aaronem 13y ago

thaumasiotes 13y ago

> "Given that pornography is emotionally charged, it would be shocking if it had no impact." I realize you're not making that argument yourself, but it strikes me as exceptionally weak. The "obvious" response is that it's been extremely difficult to document any experiences as having measurable impacts on children (starvation is a big exception, but hopefully it's not too difficult to see what might make that different...). So the baseline expectation should be a fairly strong confidence that no matter what it is that you're showing children, the effect is likely too small to measure.

iSnow 13y ago

>Leaving aside the question of what a small cohort of randomly selected 16-to-18-year-olds This stood out for me as a very weak part of the article. Cite studies and meta-studies that substantiate some relatively minor impact of porn on personal development and then turn around, toss the scientific way of thinking and take some random sample of teenagers in a non-controlled environment as the ultimate measurement.