A survey done in the United Kingdom (UK) over school students’ attitudes to pornography revealed that a significant number of young people between the ages of 14 and 18 are watching porn frequently, with some of them becoming addicted to sexually explicit content. A report by The Guardian on Friday (March 10) said that the study done by Dignify (a charity that researches sexual abuse), spoke to 4,000 students in the above age group in Hertfordshire.
Dignify found that 22% of these students viewed porn on multiple occasions. Of those, one in five students said that they had a porn habit and one in 10 said they felt addicted.
In the survey, young people were asked what age they were when they first saw pornography. The average age was 12 but the youngest age was three. The survey also said that a third of young people received a nude video or photo, and of these well over half had received a nude from a stranger, The Guardian reported.
Dignify’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Helen Roberts said that it was impossible to tackle the embedded behaviours of sexual harassment in schools without talking about the harmful impact pornography is having on children and young people. Roberts said the charity was particularly concerned by how many children telling that they are addicted to porn.
Meanwhile, teaching unions said that schools across the UK have been struggling to meet demands in educating students about online harm, in particular pornography. This week, a decision by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to order a review of the way sex education is taught in schools was labelled politically motivated by the unions. They said they saw no evidence of claims by Conservative MPs that children were being shown age-inappropriate materials in classrooms.
Speaking to the publication, the headteacher of one of the schools that have worked closely with Dignify, said there was a rise in the number of students reporting sexual assaults in recent years.
“We saw the number of students reporting sexual assault start to increase seven to eight years ago and at first we didn’t know why. And then working with Dignify I began to learn about the impact porn was having on our students,” the headteacher, who wished to remain anonymous said.
“The correlation between sexual abuse and watching porn is very high. The majority of what they see is violent,” the headteacher added.
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