Study: More kids exposed to online porn

42 percent of Internet users ages 10 to 14 have viewed sexual images
Associated Press

CHICAGO - More children and teens are being exposed to online pornography, mostly by accidentally viewing sexually explicit Web sites while surfing the Internet, researchers say.

Forty-two percent of Internet users aged 10 to 17 surveyed said they had seen online pornography in the past year. Of those, 66 percent said they did not want to view the images and had not sought them out, University of New Hampshire researchers found. Their conclusions appear in February’s Pediatrics, due out Monday.

“It’s beyond the wild West out there. You’ve really taken away the age of innocence,” said Dr. Michael Wasserman, a pediatrician with the Ochsner Clinic in Metairie, La., who was not involved in the study. In the survey, most kids who reported unwanted exposure were aged 13 to 17. Still, sizable numbers of 10- and 11-year-olds also had unwanted exposure — 17 percent of boys and 16 percent of girls that age. More than one-third of 16- and 17-year-old boys surveyed said they had intentionally visited X-rated sites in the past year.

Online use that put kids at the highest risk for unwanted exposure to pornography was using file-sharing programs to download images. However, they also stumbled onto X-rated images through other “normal” Internet use, the researchers said, including talking online with friends, visiting chat rooms and playing games. See: Study: More kids exposed to online porn