This just in: porn filters won’t stop your horny kids from looking at dirty videos. And in other news: water … is wet.
A recent paper published by the Oxford Internet Institute found that internet filtering tools are ineffective at blocking your child’s access to adult material because the technology behind sharing it is constantly evolving. In addition, developing the filtering tools are expensive and incredibly difficult to maintain.
The study, along with others over the last decade, show that members of households that employ filters still see just as much porn as those without.
How Porn Was Had B.I. (Before Internet)
Curious youths today don’t know how good they have it. Porn is everywhere—and it’s so easy to find. Back in my day, you only had access to naked girls if you were lucky enough to have a friend swipe a Playboy or Hustler magazine from his Dad’s secret stash and share it with you and your buddies. Then, if he let you borrow it, you had to hide it under your bed or in your closet—or bury it in the brush under a big pine tree outside—so your mother wouldn’t find it. The other way to see anything dirty was to spend long hours staring at scrambled images on the Playboy channel in hopes of seeing a boob on the T.V.—which gave new meaning to the old term, “boob tube.” But more often than not, you probably got your rocks off looking at images of women in lingerie in your mom’s Sears catalogue.
Ahhhh … the good ol’ days.
Life Porn … uh … finds a way.
Nowadays, anyone can view nudes, semi-nudes, and hardcore porn on computers, tablets, and smartphones all day long. Of course, many parents aren’t monitoring these devices to see if their kids are checking this stuff out. Some do, I’m sure. However, I wonder how many check daily. A large amount of parents have tried turning on each device’s porn filtering tools, but these studies show that this isn’t good enough.
Generally, I wouldn’t be too worried if my 14-year-old was looking for nudes and found them. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t be ecstatic. It’s just that … it’s part of growing up. However, there’s a whole lot more than good ol’ fashioned nakedness out there. Hardcore porn is not something a young person should be seeing. And there are plenty of sites with tons of content that go way beyond everyday sexual imagery. No one under the age of 18 should be allowed to view those pictures and videos. But guess what? They do. Why? Because life finds a way—to show you porn.
What Can You Do To Protect Your Kids From Porn?
- Keep enabling those porn filters—Even if they don’t work for long, they may help a bit by shielding your youngest ones from seeing things accidentally.
- Check your child’s devices daily—Look for any inkling of them deleting history and clearing cache to hide what they were viewing—like you do!
- Talk to your child—It may be awkward and uncomfortable for both of you, but it needs to be done—just like with that birds-and-the-bees conversation you once had. You did have that? Didn’t you? If you can, have the father talk to the son and the mother talk to the daughter to make it easier.
- Install a phone spy app—A major way that parents are watching over their kids is by monitoring them from afar with some type of cell phone spy software. You should too.
