Children view bad content online

A recent study [1] shows that 42% of children ages 10 to 14 have viewed adult material online.

More children and teens are being exposed to online pornography, mostly by accidentally viewing sexually explicit Web sites while surfing the Internet, researchers say.

Forty-two percent of Internet users aged 10 to 17 surveyed said they had seen online pornography in the past year. Of those, 66 percent said they did not want to view the images and had not sought them out, University of New Hampshire researchers found. Their conclusions appear in February’s Pediatrics, due out Monday.

 Sadly, these statistics are not very suprising. It is unimaginable that children this young are seeing this filth, yet extremely scary that 1 out of 3 of these children are intentionally seeking this content out. This is one, among many, reasons that we decided before we had children that they would not be allowed online without immediate adult supervision. Every time I read a news article like this (or one about preditors using IM/Email/Blogs to prey on children and so on) I am reminded that this is a good policy. It is a wonderful tool; unfortunately temptation is at every corner.