Negative Impact on Children Due to the Presence of Adult Material on the Internet - Essay Example

? NEGATIVE INTERNET CONTENTS AND CHILDREN Presented By goes here] To [your goes here] and number goes here] [Date of submission of the paper] Negative Internet Contents and Children 1. Introduction Before going into the discussion regarding negative internet contents and their effects on children, let us get a better understanding of what negative internet contents actually are. Negative internet contents refer to the display of adult or pornographic material on the internet. Availability of adult contents and violent video games on the internet has raised many concerns for the people regarding their young children. Although governments of many countries have tried to block access to the adult websites but a real effort in this regard has never been made in any part of the world. In this paper, we will discuss the effects of negative internet contents on young children. We will also focus social construction of the childhood in order to get a better understanding of the issue. 2. Children and Negative Use of Internet “The combination of pornography and the pedophiles it produces is deadly for children” (Kastleman 2010). The sexual contents available on the internet in forms of pictures, stories, and movie clips produce a number of negative effects on the children. Some studies show that almost 4 to 5 out of every 10 children regularly switch on their personal computers just to watch the adult material. The number of children watching adult material varies from place to place and it depends on their social construction as well. In some societies, people try to keep their children away from any sort of adult activity. Some people even make their children stay away from the friendships with opposite gender. Such restrictions increase the frustration level of the children and the frustration leads their way towards illegal social and sexual activities. The growing age of children is very critical for their proper mental and social development. Children generally are very eager to know about sex, and for this reason, they use different ways to gain information about it. Internet is one of the easiest ways to get sex related information. Some children do not open adult websites intentionally. They just log on to the internet to search educational stuff or other things based on their personal interests. But when they start searching for their desired stuff on the internet, the links present on the websites sometimes lead their way towards adult material, which drive the attention of children away from actual purpose. Seventy percent of all children exposed to pornographic material are not actually looking for such contents (Dougherty 2010). The unintentionally opened websites attract the attention of the children and they start exploring those websites in order to know more and more about sex. 3. Negative Internet Contents Livingstone and Hadden (2009) found that internet brings both opportunities and risks for the children. Risks are related to the presence of sexual contents on the internet. There are three major types of negative contents available on the internet, which include sex stories, sexual video clips, and webcams. Pictures and video clips arouse the sexual feelings of children and increase the level of sex frustration in them. We cannot say that every child who views pornographic material is affected by the negative contents. “Every child who is exposed to pornography does not automatically become a sexual deviant or sex addict” (Hughes 1998). The effects are harmful for those children who view the pictures and try to practice what they see in the pictures. We can take the example of alcoholic drinks. Not every person who takes such drinks becomes addicted to those drinks. Some people take those drinks very seldom just to relieve themselves from the tensions for some time whereas some people become addicted to alcohol and they cannot even live a single day without taking alcoholic drinks. Same case is with the children who want to view pornographic material available on the internet. Not every child who watches pornographic websites is harmed by the content. Some people have good control over their emotions and feelings and do not view the adult material very frequently. They just view the content when they have some free time and do not have any other way to spend that time. Along with adult pictures and videos, children also make negative use of webcams. As we said earlier, sex is a basic desire for any individual, so when the children do not get a chance to involve into sexual activities with opposite gender, they try to make internet friendships in order to satisfy their sexual needs. Such children make use of webcams in order to do sexual chat with their friends. They also expose their bodies in front of each other, which is considered very bad act in most of the societies. It is the responsibility of the parents to guide their children regarding the use of internet. They should teach safe use of internet to their children instead of letting them do what they want to do on the internet. Parents need to make their children aware of the negative effects of watching adult contents on the internet so that the children should keep themselves away from those contents. Both parents and teachers hold the responsibility to guide their children towards the positive use of internet. Children are children; they have no idea of what is right for them and what is wrong. Therefore, it is the responsibility of parents and teachers to make them aware of every issue related to the negative use of internet. 4. Sociological Point of View The sociological point of view is that human behavior depends on the environment in which he or she grows up. If a person grows up watching good things and observing good behaviors, it brings a positive impact on that person whereas if a person grows up observing negative behaviors, the result is not pleasant for the mental and social development of that person. According to sociologist viewpoint, childhood of a person is social interaction in which the child learns how to interact and deal with other people. Early exposure to bad experiences or bad habits creates many problems for the children, which they face later in their lives. 5. What are Sociological Problems or Risks? According to sociological perspective, risk is a danger or probability of occurrence of some negative behaviors as the result of some negative activities or experiences in childhood. When a child experiences negative feelings and unwanted behaviors in the childhood, the probability of risks is increased in that child. Media technologies such as internet and television put a significant impact on the social development of a child (Davies 2010). Calvert and Wilson (2011, p. 134) found that reduced communication between parents and children and isolation are some of the adverse affects of internet on a family. The contents, which a child watches on these media, affect the social behavior of a child. There are different types of risks associated with the improper upbringing of a child. In this paper, we are discussing social risks, which occur due to negative use of the internet. 6. Sociological Problems Associated With Negative Internet Use There are a number of critical issues associated with the negative use of internet. Forced rapes, unplanned pregnancies, violent games, isolation, and sexual addiction are some of those issues or problems, which emerge as the result of watching negative internet contents. 6.1 Forced rapes Rape is one of the biggest sociological issues, which occurs when children watch negative contents available on the internet. When the children grow up watching adult movies and pictures on the internet, their level of frustration reaches peak and that frustration leads them towards criminal acts such as forced rapes. Those children, who become addicted to the internet, do not get much time for their proper mental grooming and the lack of appropriate mental development make them create problems for the whole society. “Childhood is understood as a social construction” (Kehily 2004, p. 8). Parents and teachers must groom children properly because children play the role of active social agents in a society. “Children who experience early exposure to pornography (at age < 14), have a much greater propensity to be involved in deviant sexual practice” (Dougherty 2010). 6.2 End of Family System Another dilemma related to watching negative contents on the internet is end of family system in some of the western countries. Children usually search for sex on the internet (Livingstone 2009, p. 171). Those children, who grow up watching adult material on the internet, usually have less interest in marriages. They want to have illegal relationships just to satisfy their sexual needs. If we go deep into the issue of decreased marriage trend in the west, we find negative internet use as one of the reasons behind that. Children want to practice what they watch on the internet and those practices create many problems for them. For example, some young girls lose their virginity very early in their lives, which makes them scared of being exposed by getting married. Therefore, we can say that negative contents available on the internet play a considerable role in ending the family system in the western countries. 6.3 Unplanned Pregnancies Another big problem associated with the presence of adult material on the internet is unplanned pregnancy. Those children, who regularly watch adult material on the internet, are more eager to perform sex as compared to those children, who do not watch the adult content. Such children, when grow up, get involved in sexual activities creating many problems for the society. Unwanted pregnancy is one of the biggest issues in most of the European and American countries and negative use of internet is one of the major reasons behind that issue. It is the responsibility of the parents, particularly mothers, to create awareness in their children about the consequences of getting involved in illegal sexual relationships. 6.4 Sexual Addiction Another effect of negative internet contents is sexual addiction among the children. As stated earlier, sex is a basic human need, which a person wants to achieve. So in order to fulfill sex desire, children make use of internet where they can see a variety of sexual contents very easily. It becomes very difficult for the children to stay away from negative use of internet once they feel some sort of sexual satisfaction in that. “Children and teens who are exposed to pornography have these images etched in their memories for the rest of their lives” (Kastleman 2010). Recovery from sexual addiction is very difficult. Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction as compared to cocaine addicts because pornographic images stay in the brain forever (Singel 2004). 6.5 Violent Games Effects of playing violent games are also not good for the children, particularly the children of age 3 to 11. Such children are very young and if a child of that age group plays violent games in that age, the consequences occur in the later stages of life. Some of the widely observed consequences include development of aggressive behavior, destructive nature, and hostile and unfriendly attitude towards others. 6.6 Isolation Another problem, which occurs due to negative use of internet, is isolation. Negative activities on the internet, for example, doing dirty chat, playing violent games, and watching adult material, make a child isolated and away from other people. A child develops a deep interest in those activities and remains in constant search for the opportunity to perform those activities. For this, the child become isolated from the society taking less interest in social interactions and more in negative activities on the internet. 7. Conclusion Negative impact on children due to the presence of adult material on the internet is one of the most serious concerns for the parents these days. Forced rapes, unwanted pregnancies, and sexual addiction, violence, aggression, and isolation are some of the most critical issues associated with the negative use of internet from sociologist point of view. It is the mutual responsibility of parents, teachers, and the governments of all countries to create awareness among the children about the harmful consequences of watching adult contents in order to resolve the critical issues, which arise due to negative use of internet by the children. References Calvert, S & Wilson, J 2011. The Handbook of Children, Media, and Development, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, West Sussex. Davies, M 2010. Children, Media and Culture, McGraw-Hill, New York. Doupherty, F 2010. Pornography Harms Children - How to Keep Your Children Safe, viewed 12 March, 2011, . Hughes, R 1998, How Pornography Harms Children, viewed 12 March, 2011, . Kastleman, M 2010. Children as Victims, viewed 12 March, 2011, . Kehily, M 2004. An Introduction to Childhood Studies, Open University Press, New York. Livingstone, S 2009. Children and the Internet. Polity Press, Cambridge. Livingstone, S & Hadden, L 2009. Kids Online: Opportunities and Risks for Children, Policy Press, Bristol. Singel, R 2004, Internet Porn: Worse than Crack?, viewed 12 March, 2011, . Read More