It’s a pleasure to have our first guest blog post by Kelsey Boultbee who’s currently studying Communications Studies at Capilano University. She wrote this piece as a summary of some of her recent studies and we felt it was very relevant to our user feedback and our goal of keeping kids safe while browsing the internet with our safe browser, SPIN.

–Justin.

The Effect of Pornography on the Lives of Adolescents by Kelsey Boultbee

Screen-time for your kids is one matter, but the material that they engage with during that screen-time is something else entirely. As a student at Capilano University, I’ve been doing research on the effect of pornography on the lives and minds of adolescents. I would like to point out that the following literature review is just that, a review of other people’s hard work. I’ve attempted to be objective, despite my personal views on the matter. It should also be noted that I have not completed any of my own primary research on the subject, but I have done my due diligence to cite my sources according to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) guidelines. If you have any questions about this research, please don’t hesitate to ask. I can be reached at kelsey@nationaledtech.com. 

Abstract

This article will briefly examine research regarding the use of pornography by adolescents and attempt to determine whether the increased obtainability of porn could negatively affect their lives. Much of the available research on the topic links the incidence of things like sexual-risk-taking, substance abuse, ‘sexting’, and adolescent dating abuse (ADA) with the viewing of pornography, but many of the studies fail to prove causality. This review will look at the ways in which the proliferation of pornography, and its increasing availability affect the sex lives of adolescents. ADA is a rampant problem in today’s media culture, as is ‘sexting’, and there are many instances of young women sending nude pictures to young men at their school (or elsewhere), either by request, or unprompted. These incidents have potentially devastating, legal consequences and could destroy the lives of all parties involved. Much of the current research asserts that education is key here, and that if we can educate youth about what to expect and how to be prepared for such instances, we can provide them with a much more enriched sexual education.

Read the rest of Kelsey’s research summary by downloading the full PDF version by clicking here.