Family & Life Magazine Issue 7 | Page 16

NURTURE Scourge By Song Shandong The of Internet Several recent studies have discovered that our teenagers are using pornography to find out more information about real-life sex. Unfortunately, this has incredibly undesirable consequences on their real-life behaviour, as Song finds out. Porn It might be a surprise to all just how early porn exposure begins. People tend to think that it is targeted at adults. But, the truth is, the majority of us have our first experience of viewing porn when we are, on average, 11-years-old, and almost everyone gets an eyeful of naked bodies well before the age of 18. desire for learning more about sex grows stronger. Children are extremely vulnerable to porn. To begin with, children are naturally curious about how sex and are always eager to learn where babies come from and what are the differences between boys and girls. When they grow older and ascend into teenage-hood, their hormones predictably rise. Consequently, their The level of sex education in most Asian families almost never satisfies children’s needs and they begin learning about sex from other avenues, whether it be from friends or the media. Unfortunately, in a conservative home environment, kids learn quickly that the subject is off limits once they try to talk about sex or porn with their parents, who always try to avoid the topic. If parents are not there to resolve the porn issue with their children, the dominoes begin to fall: emotional closeness between children and their parents begins to crumble; children might develop unnecessary shame of their interest in sex, which will possibly in turn, fuel their desire for porn. And in our digital world now, Internetdelivered porn can easily find a way to influence children. In fact, premature exposure to sexual material actually meant for adults is rapidly becoming a huge problem. Today, more kids are stumbling across porn on the Internet. After all, there are more than 400 million pages of pornography on the Internet! Decades ago, we needed to look for vendors to buy porn videos and magazines. Back then, we needed time, money and energy to find porn; today, however, we need time, money and energy to avoid porn, especially on the Internet. With unsolicited e-mails, deceptive links and pop-up windows, porn can easily make its way into our lives. The omnipresence of porn has more of an opportunity to become something of significance. • ONE OUT OF FOUR KIDS WHO HAVE INTERNET ACCESS EXPERIENCE ACCIDENTAL EXPOSURE TO PORN. DOPAMINE Family & Life • Apr 2014 SEROTONIN 16 Unfortunately, by overloading your brain with pleasure chemicals, porn reduces your body’s natural ability to produce and effectively release them under normal life circu mstances. If you have been watching porn regularly to ease yourself, withdrawal from it will produce feelings of agitation or depression. In fact, people in porn recovery take an average of eighteen months to heal from the damage to their dopamine receptors alone. ADRENALINE • STUDIES SHOW THAT ABOUT HALF THE MEN AND ONE-TENTH OF THE WOMEN WHO ARE EXPOSED TO PORNOGRAPHY IN CHILDHOOD GO ON TO USE IT REGULARLY AS ADULTS. WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR BRAIN ON PORN When people get sexually aroused, dopamine is released in the brain. Porn evokes the production of dopamine, which then surges in our system. Meanwhile, production of other pleasure chemicals in the brain increases as well, including endorphins, adrenaline and serotonin. Watching porn could produce experiences of excitement, relaxation, and escape from pain. Over time, one can easily come to depend on porn to make oneself feel good and to escape from negative feelings. ENDORPHINS • 90% OF THE CHILDREN BETWEEN THE AGES OF EIGHTAND 16-YEARS-OLD REPORT THAT THEY HAVE VIEWED PORN ONLINE. The more deeply one is involved with porn, the more negative the consequences that are likely to occur. Porn is delivered in ways that encourage addiction, and the impact of addiction can be explained in scientific terms.