Q. My teenaged son and his long-time buddy are viewing pornography on the internet. I know this only because his sister ratted him out. My husband says that it is no different from reading Playboy which he did as a teen. Do I need to be worried?
A.
There is nothing new about pornography. If you go to Pompeii there are several sites which are limited to adult visitors because of the graphic nature of the pictures on the walls. What is new is the internet, which makes the visuals more available. Additionally, instead of still pictures, which will get boring after a while, the visuals on the internet are of people who are moving.
The problem is two-fold. One part is an internet addiction which psychologists are beginning to recognize has neurobiological connections, which means that changes in the brain make the behavior of someone who is addicted to internet sites similar to the behavior of someone addicted to drugs. The same pleasure center in the brain is being activated, which makes the person more likely to use the internet to obtain the gratification that’s normally gained through interaction with other people. The second part is that viewing pornography leads a person to believe that the viewed behavior is normal, so they are more likely to seek similar interaction with other people. The result: individuals who spend a huge amount of time on the internet and who lack competent skills in making healthy relationships with others.
So, yes, you do need to be worried. Research says that many young men believe that viewing pornography on the web is normal and that there is not likely to be anything that you did wrong in parenting him. What you need to do is sit him down and have a frank talk about the long-term effects of internet pornography and point out that you are not pleased that he is wasting so much of his time in this activity. As he gets older he’s likely to switch his attentions to girls, but you don’t want him to get so involved in obtaining gratification from the web that he doesn’t find pleasure in the company of real live people. That’s an outcome you need to prevent!