Study Shows Teens Prefer Internet Porn - BLOG

Parents should be alarmed on what their teens are up to in the internet. These teens are not fully aware of the online dangers available online. They are taking the risk by posting their personal information and downloading their unnecessary photos online without the full knowledge of their parents. In addition, aside from their social network accounts, teens are also exposed to pornographic websites out of curiosity, friends influence and lack of education regarding sexual predators.

Teen Internet Behavior

In an annual study of “Teen Internet Behavior” conducted by McAfee, it showed that teens prefer to watch porn, especially when their parents are away. “When it comes to using the Internet, teens are not only engaging in risky behaviors, but how they are hiding it from their parents, many of whom don’t realize they are being fooled” according to McAfee.

McAfee exposed their findings on teens behavior on pornographic materials online such as:

• 43% of teens access a simulated violence websites.
• 36% of teens are looking for articles with sexual topics.
• 43% of teens on a weekly basis, check out porn sites.
• 70% of teens find new strategies to avoid parental monitoring on the computer.
• 53% of teens cleared the browser history of the internet.
• 46% of teens minimize the window of porn websites when their parents walk in.
• 34% of teens delete or hide IM conversations and videos.
• 1/5 of teens are using private browser and edit the privacy settings.

Stanley Holditch of Online Safety Expert for McAfee was surprise that there are lack of parental guidance for teens who uses the internet “While it is not necessarily surprising that teens are engaging in the same types of rebellious behaviors online that they exhibit offline, it is surprising how disconnected their parents are. There is a major increase in the number of teens finding ways to hide what they do online from their parents, as compared to the 2010 study. This is a generation that is so comfortable with technology that they are surpassing their parents in understanding and getting away with behaviors that are putting their safety at risk” Holditch said.

McAfee additional findings on their studies:

• Parents are unaware that their Teens spend more time online. Regularly, teens are spending five hours a day in the internet. Contrast to what their parents believe that their children spend only an average of three hours a day online. Almost 10% of teens (10.3%) spend more than 10 hours a day in the cyber world.
• Teens spend a lot of time in checking their social networks. Teens are stick to their news feeds wherein 60% of social network users are checking their accounts everyday while 41% are checking their accounts frequently. In regards with parents, 48% of them think that their teens are checking their social network accounts daily and 22% believe that their young adulthood check their accounts regularly.
• Regardless of the rise of smartphones, The Generation Z prefers online old school. They spend more time in the internet through their laptops (37.35%) and desktops (29.8%) compared to tablets (5%) and smartphones (13.48%)
• Teens love to meet online friends without thinking peril behind it. There are 12% of teens meeting  strangers that they only knew through online interactions.
• Foursquare and check-in sites falling. Unsurprisingly, Facebook was the most popular site wherein there are 89.5% of teens patronage it, Twitter (48.7%), Google+ (41.5%), Tumblr (33%), Pintrest (20%), 4chan (23%), and MySpace (18%). Foursquare and location-based sites were the least popular among teens (12.2%).

Robert Siciliano, McAfee Online Security Expert expressed his concern regarding teens online behavior “Parents need to get informed about their children’s online behavior. The fact is that allowing teens to participate in unmonitored online activity exposes them to real dangers with real consequences, and these dangers are growing exponentially with the proliferation of social networks” Siciliano said.

Teens are most likely to be at risk when they are continuously exposed to pornographic websites and materials with very explicit images and videos that are really stimulating and potentially might lead to addiction. Addiction to porn might lead teens to isolation, shame, depressed, compulsion, acting what they seen in the porn websites, self-absorption and vague views of intimacy and real relationship. On the other hand, not everyone being exposed to pornography becomes addicted to it. Those teens that are most vulnerable to pornography addiction are the ones who cannot rely on their parents to give them proper guidance and care. So, parental guidance for these young minds is very essential when raising children for them to have a better behavior and good views in life.