The Impact of Online Pornography on Young People: A Growing Concern
Experts are issuing warnings about the consumption of pornography, citing negative impacts and the increasingly young age of viewers.
Online pornography has been a topic of moral debate for a long time, but now prominent authorities are raising concerns about the decreasing age of the audience for this material—a trend that could have significant implications for the mental health of a generation.
Our Watch, a national organization focusing on preventing violence against women and children, found that the average age at which young people first access pornography is now 13.6.
Data collected by Collective Shout, an Australian group dedicated to ending sexual exploitation, revealed that children as young as seven or eight are viewing porn online and some are even sharing nude photos.
With online porn becoming more accessible than ever, experts are hoping that increased awareness and education about the dangers of this content can help protect society from the real consequences.
Normalizing Harmful Behavior
According to Our Watch, the increased exposure to explicit online content is negatively impacting the development of young people.
CEO Patty Kinnersly stated, “Generations of young people are now growing up with greater access to porn, which often depicts abusive acts towards women.”
Fight the New Drug, an anti-pornography movement based in the United States, reported that 70 percent of young Australians frequently see men as dominant in porn.
These statistics, combined with the fact that a significant percentage of youths witness degrading or violent acts in porn, highlight the concerning impact of online pornography on young Australians.
Neuroscientific research shows that repeated exposure to graphic content can normalize certain behaviors and desensitize individuals to degrading material.
Kinnersly emphasized the danger of once-taboo content becoming normalized and influencing the attitudes and behaviors of young people towards sex and relationships.
Where Love Goes to Die
Porn consumption is also impacting emotional connections between partners, with psychologist Jillian Spencer noting that it is damaging children’s ability to form caring relationships.
Spencer highlighted how porn encourages young people to focus on their physical appearance and sexual performance, leading to a distortion of normal relationship dynamics.
Furthermore, porn consumption is not only a preoccupation for many young boys but can also replace traditional dating, disrupting the natural development of healthy relationship skills.
An Assault on Healthy Development
Melinda Tankard Reist, a director at Collective Shout, described the current trends in porn consumption as “a pornographic experiment on young people” and a threat to normal, healthy sexual development.
Reist emphasized how porn consumption can lead to boys pressuring girls to engage in acts inspired by the porn they consume, objectifying women and undermining respect and consent in relationships.
She called for a cultural shift to acknowledge the harms of pornography and move away from a permissive societal attitude towards this content.
In light of these concerns, the Australian government recently passed a world-first ban on social media access for under 16-year-olds, including platforms like X, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, to address rising mental health issues and cyberbullying, and potentially pave the way for restricting pornography access in the future.
Looking Ahead
Our Watch’s Kinnersly advocates for improved professional education for teachers on the topic of pornography to facilitate safe and honest discussions with young people about gender roles and relationships depicted in porn.
Spencer calls for a cultural shift to protect the sexual development of young people from distortion caused by pornography, emphasizing the need to acknowledge the harms of porn and move towards a more critical societal attitude towards this content.
