RISE IN CHILD ADDICTION TO PORNOGRAPHY
 

Children are harmed not only by child pornographers, but also by the consumption of adult pornography. The average age of a child’s first exposure to pornography is 11. A total of 90 percent of children ages 8-16 have viewed pornography online. Many are becoming addicted to freely available Internet pornography. The effects of pornography are powerful on their developing brains. Eric M. Johnson, a clinical psychologist and full-time forensic evaluator who directs the Oregon Forensic Institute says that some children who encounter pornography “are captured by the images.” Johnson treats kids in trouble for sexual behavior and has observed how his patients use the Internet to view pornography: “For them it becomes something very different, and they become obsessed. They think about it all the time … and so it begins to dominate their lives.” There is also evidence that the rise in child-on-child sexual abuse appears to flow from consumption of Internet pornography.