Is internet porn ruining our next generation? Is censorship the answer?

AZPaul3Some insight here but you ignore the addiction angle and that put's it a cut above as it warns of a real phenomenon.Regards
DL

But it's you that is making the claims - which at the seems both hyperbolic and non-scientific - and are willing to censor the internet on the basis of them.I'm prepared to be convinced that this may be causing harm, but it's up to you to convince me - and us.

Your understanding is wrong. I would bet real money that I could find you a hundred free sites for every pay site.To prove this to yourself, just make sure "safe search" is off in Google images and simply search the word "Porn".JBEdited by ThinAirDesigns, : No reason given.

I hear you but as Gary Wilson indicated in his talk, stats are hard to come by.I do have a bit more that I collected from the political arena and science via experts but other than many pointing to an epidemic, none are putting numbers to their talks.Enough Is Enough: PornographyEven Muslims are agreeing with Western sources.internet porn - Yahoo Video Search ResultsRegards
DL

I googled a woman's name once (it wasn't "Candy" but it was something like that) and most of the hits were porn. I'm at the public library, so I'm not going to try to replicate the experiment today.

Censorship is relatively easy if people agree to it. Child pornography seems to be something that our society has agreed to outlaw and enforce restrictions on.I agree that parents in the general population are not doing a good job with sex education and in many cases neither are the schools. My wife and I taught our kids about sex and they are teaching their kids and monitoring what they watch on TV and the internet The question is, who decides what should be restricted and what should not. There seems to be a consensus about child porn, but beyond that everyone has their own levels of what is acceptable.I personally don't accept anyone else telling me what I can or cannot see or read or hear. There is not one politician, or religious leader that I recognize as having the authority to make those decisions for me. Living in a free society bestows liberty and responsibility on all of us, but we each have to act as individuals and make up our own minds about what we want to see or not see.

Tanypteryx"monitoring what they watch on TV and the internet"With respect, I see that as delusional thinking, especially now with many children having cell phones with internet capabilities.----------"The question is, who decides what should be restricted and what should not. There seems to be a consensus about child porn, but beyond that everyone has their own levels of what is acceptable."This is where consensus comes into play, after the need is recognized, and people/experts are chosen to make proposals to government. No one person has the expertise on this issue.-----------"I personally don't accept anyone else telling me what I can or cannot see or read or hear. There is not one politician, or religious leader that I recognize as having the authority to make those decisions for me."You personally have no choice where child porn is concerned so our individual desires mean nothing when you and I choose to be governed by majority rule.You do accept those restriction as you have no more choice than any of us unless you choose to break the law.But this is not about what we want. It is about what is best for our next generation.We are powerless to do the right thing and have to censor or directly choose to consume porn products.To just leave those addictive products accessible to children is just irresponsible of us and poor parenting.Regards
DL

I only have time for this short answer right now. I seem to be having some connection problems this morning.I don't happen to agree with you that censorship is what's best for the next generation. Child pornography was made illegal because it exploits children, not because of its effect on viewers. Charging those who posess child porn with a crime is an attempt to dry up the market for those material.Majority rule does not trump freedom of speech or expression or the press. Censorship always seems to go too far.

Are you really this naive, Jon?

Two can jest. Loosen up, or you'll end up like Tanypteryx.

Does it? Does Porn Hurt Children?

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It turns out that the research suggesting that teenagers and pornography are a hazardous mix is far from definitive. In fact, many of the most comprehensive reports on this subject come to conclusions that amount to we can’t say for sure shrugs.

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But everyone just knows that porn leads to sex addiction and violence.

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(Children’s Commissioner for England) In May, the commissioner released a report titled Basically ... porn is everywhere, which examined 276 research papers on teenagers and pornography.

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After sifting through those papers, the report found a link between exposure to pornography and engagement in risky behavior, such as unprotected sex or sex at a young age. But little could be said about that link. Most important, causal relationships between pornography and risky behavior could not be established, the report concluded.

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So the only link between porn and bad behavior is that so many kids engage in both. Kids also eat ice cream and kids often masturbate. Causal?

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American scholars have come to nearly identical nonconclusions. By the end we looked at 40 to 50 studies, said Eric Owens, an assistant professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania and co-author of The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents: A Review of the Research, published in Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. And it became, ‘O.K., this one tells us A, this one tells us B.’ To some degree we threw up our hands and said, there is no conclusion to be drawn here.

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But everyone just knows that porn leads to sex addiction and violence.No one is saying there is no effect. But to what extent?

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Among the most prolific and revered researchers to examine teenagers and pornography is a duo in the Netherlands, Jochen Peter and Patti M. Valkenburg.

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when teens watch more porn they tend to be more dissatisfied with their sexual lives. This effect is not really a strong effect, though. And teens with more sexual experience didn’t show this effect at all.

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So, is there a real problem between kids and porn?Yes, but apparently the real problem is not what we all seem to just know.

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There are lots of teenagers who will tell you that they know the difference between pornography and sex in real life, in the same way, and for the same reasons, that they know World of Warcraft isn’t an actual world. But researchers like Professor Horvath say it’s a bad idea to hope that kids intuit what is fake or misleading about pornography.

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One of our recommendations is that children should be taught about relationships and sex at a young age, Professor Horvath continued. If we start teaching kids about equality and respect when they are 5 or 6 years old, by the time they encounter porn in their teens, they will be able to pick out and see the lack of respect and emotion that porn gives us. They’ll be better equipped to deal with what they are being presented with.

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If our next generation is being ruined is the cause porn or cell phones or music or TV or parenting or ...?

funny

Could do a whole lot worse. Could end up like ... someone else.

Sounds just like when we were kids. Nope, but messy if done at the same time. Cheetos....no, computers....no, Cheetos.....

I lucked out and ended up just like Tanypteryx.....