Effects of Pornography on Teens
With increasing accessibility to the Internet in American homes, it is easy for teens to see something that they are not meant to see. Studies show that about 70% of all 15- to17-year-olds have accidentally come across online porn.1 And 73% of these cases were while surfing the Internet. Youth with high internet use, internet use outside their home, chat room use, and online risk behavior were more likely to have been exposed.2
The porn industry makes more than $97 billion world wide and $13 billion in the United States alone.2 As a result, porn is easily available to teens. Most males (>65%) and fewer females have voluntarily viewed porn.3,4 Most teens who have consumed porn feel that it influences others' sexual behaviors more than their own.5 However, watching sexually explicit material is not harmless and has negative effects on a teen.
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