Nearly four-fifths of 16- and 17-year-olds have encountered pornographic content on the Internet.
This is according to a study – done by Professor Neil Thurman of the Department of Media and Communication (IfKW) at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, in collaboration with statistician Fabian Obster (Universität der Bundeswehr München) – that involved a sample of 1,000 adolescents to look at the use of pornographic sites by young people.
As it is, pornography is a multibillion-dollar business, with pornographic content is virtually ubiquitous on the Internet. Surveys suggest that 25% of all searches lead to explicit content. And given the size of the market, “it’s not surprising that young people are drawn to such sites, which are only a couple of clicks away,” the researchers noted.
Per the research, overall, 78% of users between the ages of 16 and 17 reported that they had encountered pornography on the Internet. Moreover, many of them stated that they visited dedicated pornographic websites frequently.
Those who participated in the survey admitted that, on average, they had last visited such sites six days prior to filling in the questionnaire. And many respondents said they watched porno videos and viewed picture galleries on that very day.
Analysis of the responses indicated that adolescents spent an average of two hours per month on commercial pornographic websites, almost always accessed on their smartphones or tablets. The survey also revealed that young consumers are also turning to social media portals for access to explicit material. Adolescent users of online pornography are more likely to be male.
In some countries – e.g. Germany, the UK, France and Canada – efforts are now underway to regulate access to legal online pornography, and in some cases measures have already been implemented. These include provisions for mandatory age verification prior to the admission of users to such websites. But, according to Thurman’s survey, around half of the respondents had used VPNs or the Tor browser. Both tools anonymize connection data, thus allowing country-specific restrictions to be circumvented.
“At present, the online pornography market is highly concentrated. It is dominated by a few global firms. Indeed, only a handful of websites account for the majority of consumption,” Thurman says.
In the context of measures to protect minors, he therefore suggests that, in additional to country-specific measures, there should also be pressure placed on the major global publishers of pornography, to encourage them to introduce effective age restrictions in all the markets in which they operate. In addition, similar regulations should be applied, as is already happening in the select parts of the world, to social-media platforms.
