A generation is growing up with online pornography. What impact is it having on them — and how should parents handle it? W hen Jed first heard from friends about websites where you could see naked women, it sounded too good to be true. After trying to make sense of what he was seeing, Jed clicked off the page and cleared the browsing history. Now, eight years on and in his first year of an engineering course at university, Jed is a member of a generation that has grown up with porn, and estimates he spends five or six hours a week looking at it. Everyone watches it.

While it may be perfectly normal and healthy for teenagers to develop curiosity in their sexuality, changing times have brought with them alarming statistics addressing teens hooked on pornography. Thanks or no thanks to the internet and cable television, there is a huge collection of pornographic images available for unrestricted viewing by adults as well as teenagers. In the past, young people could not easily access pornographic materials unless they went an extra mile to scavenge from trash or access hidden adult collections. Even children armed with only rudimentary computer skills can unlock the floodgates to a barrage of X-rated images.

Those numbers jump up toward the end of adolescence. There are plenty of reasons to watch pornography or view pornographic images. It feels good. Sure, sex — in terms of evolution — is for making babies. Sex is also a way to express love, experience intimacy, and mark the passage from adolescence to adulthood.