Portable Planet

The majority of kids are not looking for porn when they’re online, but they’re encountering adult material more than ever before.

The findings, published in the February issue of Pediatrics, found that forty-two percent of the kids surveyed said they’d encountered online pornography over the past year.Out of those,two-thirds — about 34 percent of everybody interviewed — said their exposure to the material was unwanted.The study was done via telephone survey of 1,422 kids aged 10-17 in March 2005. In comparison,a similar study in 1999-2000 showed that 25% of respondents said they’d encountered undesired porn online.

The definition of pornography was broad — the range was anywhere between casual nudity and hardcore sexual activity. While study lead author Janis Wolak acknowleged that some of the people surveyed might not be telling the truth, she defended the results.

“There’s always some possibility that kids are not entirely candid,” she said. “But we did focus groups with kids before we actually did the study, and the (survey) results were quite consistent with what the kids told us.”

Source: Bloomberg