The Negative Effects of Pornography Use in Adolescence 

Sexuality is part of being human. It is one of the driving forces behind our desire to pursue relationships with other human beings. 

Our sexuality can give us motivation to seek out and incentive to commit to a lifelong relationship with another person as engaging in sex, the most intimate form of human physical contact, releases hormones in our brains that cause us to feel strong emotional, and physical attraction and attachment to the other person. 

This is ideal for two people who are raising a child together, and this is the way it was meant to be as the other main purpose of sex is human reproduction.

It makes sense that humans are naturally curious about sexuality, especially those in adolescence whose sexualities have just begun to mature to the levels where they fully feel sexual desire and attraction and their bodies have full reproductive functioning because of the hormonal changes of puberty that are experienced during this time of life (Boyd, Johnson, & Bee, 2017, pp. 299). 

Despite this fact, in the society we live in today it isn’t socially acceptable to commit to a lifelong relationship with another person during the adolescence phase or experiment with another person sexually (although some adolescents begin dating and forming intimate relationships at this point in life and experimenting still happens). Because of this many teens look for other ways to satisfy their sexual curiosity and desires. 

With the internet allowing people to access practically infinite kinds of information and smartphones allowing anyone, anywhere to access the internet, the easiest way for people, especially tech-savvy adolescents, to explore their sexuality without physically engaging in sexual practices with another person nowadays is by the means of internet pornography. 

Although generally there is some negativity and stigma around pornography use, many teens see it as a convenient, harmless way to satisfy their sexual needs in a safe way. Research is showing though that pornography use in adolescence can have negative effects on one’s sexual and social development: it is not as harmless as it may seem.

In The Journal of Sex Research, Jochen Peter and Patti M. Valkenburg (2016) summarize the literature and research that has been done on adolescents’ relationship with pornography from 1995 to 2015: the only period in history where the internet has existed in everyday life (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). They point out that researchers have almost exclusively relied on surveys to study this topic as experimental research involving exposing adolescents to pornography would be ethically wrong and illegal in most places (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). 

According to their findings, the results of the surveys that have been done over the years in different locations to report the volume and demographics of teens who use pornography and the frequency and types of pornography use have been diverse (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016).  They theorize this is because the studies vary in methodology, the internet has gone through dramatic changes between 1995 and 2015, and individual studies can be influenced by the cultural context of the location of the study. 

To give an idea of the potential prevalence of teen pornography use and addiction though, a 2008 survey of American college students asking about their behaviour when they were in adolescence as reported by CovenantEyes.com found that 93 % of boys and 62 % of girls are exposed to internet pornography before the age of 18 with 70 % of boys and 23 % of girls having spent more than 30 consecutive minutes watching pornography on at least one occasion, and 35 % of boys and 14 % girls having done this on more than ten occasions (Gilkerson, 2010).

Peter and Valkenburg’s (2016) report also looked at what research said about the potential explanations are causes of pornography use in adolescents (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). 

As was consistent with the sample evidence from CovenantEyes.com, they found consistent evidence that more males used pornography as teens with qualitative evidence finding that they used it more out of curiosity and sexual arousal than females (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). They also found that more girls thought of pornography as “dumb and gross” although boys were generally critical of it as well (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016).   

The conclusion they made was that the most likely users of pornography are “male, pubertally more advanced, sensation-seeking adolescents with weak or troubled family relations” (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). This makes sense as this demographic would likely be the most ready to explore their sexuality but may have a hard time developing relationships to do so. 

Gender role conflict may also be correlated to pornography use and explain why the percentage of male users is so high according to research by Dawn M. Szymanski and Destin N. Stewart-Richardson’s (2014) in The Journal of Men Studies (Szymanski & Stewart-Richardson, 2014). 

Although their study looked at young adult men specifically, knowledge of gender-roles normally develop in early childhood so this would apply to adolescent males as well (Boyd, Johnson, & Bee, 2017, pp. 231). 

They found that the gender role conflict males experience (i.e. seeing themselves as having to be masculine and dominant, and women as feminine and submissive) are linked to having avoidant or anxious attachment styles (i.e. difficulty identifying and expressing emotions, less self-disclosure, difficulty with intimacy) which seems to lead to more pornography use to compensate for their “relational and sexual deficits” (Szymanski & Stewart-Richardson, 2014).

Not only do social problems lead to pornography use though: according to an article in Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity (2012) it seems that using pornography in adolescence can in itself lead to social issues in teens and have other negative impacts on development (Owens et al., 2012). 

The article summarized a number of studies that showed various potential negative links to pornography use such as being less socially integrated with school, family, religion, or other areas of society, more social maladjustment, more behavioural problems, more depressive symptoms, lesser degrees of bonding with caregivers, and more aggressive or manipulative behaviours (Owens et al., 2012). 

In addition to the other reasons adolescents are drawn to pornography, their lack of maturity in the prefrontal cortex and the corresponding risk-taking behaviour also plays a role (Owens et al, 2012).

Although the effect of pornography on adolescent brain development hasn’t been researched extensively, the adolescent brain is more vulnerable to becoming addicted and traumatized by it as research shows pictorial stimuli such as pornography can more easily be permanently encoded in the cortical regions than other types of stimuli in adolescence (Owens et al, 2012).

Unsurprisingly, research also shows that pornography use also has an impact on the sexual development of teenagers. Peter and Valkenburg describe teens with permissive sexual attitudes as those who have no problem with the idea of casual sex in uncommitted relationships or outside of committed relationships and explain that research has shown that the accessibility of pornography and perceived realism of the sex it depicts can explain that there is a positive relationship between pornography use and permissive sexual attitudes (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016). 

They also claim that pornography is linked to teens having decreased confidence in their sexual beliefs and values and more sexual preoccupancy such as fantasizing or daydreaming (Peter & Valkenburg, 2016).

Sadly, not only can pornography have negative effects on an individual while they are using it in their teen years, it can also have a long-term impact that can affect their relationships in the future which can take time to overcome and undo. 

According to research summarized by Jill C. Manning (2006) in Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity pornography can cause individuals to find less value in marriage, monogamy, and child rearing, and it can trivialize their perception of, and increase the likelihood of them being a perpetrator of sexual assault or rape (Manning, 2006). 

According to Lifespan Development (2017), research has shown that many people believe intimacy issues such as faithfulness and a satisfactory sexual relationship, issues that those who watched pornography can have trouble with, are the most important aspects of a marriage (Boyd, Johnson, & Bee, 2017, pp. 383). This can be used to explain another conclusion Manning (2006) makes that pornography can increase the risk for negative experiences in intimate relationships (Manning, 2006).

​Evidently, many adolescents are affected in a negative way by pornography. As technology advances though it will only become more and more accessible and in our current political-economic climate it is unlikely there will ever be any more state regulation as the pornography industry generates massive profits. 

If we don’t want adolescents to suffer the devastating consequences that pornography use can have on their development, we have to start by educating adolescents and their parents and making it clear that pornography is not harmless. 

If parents and educators started teaching teenagers how to use their sexual energy to explore and work towards healthy, loving, committed relationships rather than simply treating teens’ newly-found, mature sexuality as something that they should be ashamed of which seems to be what leads them to pornography, this would be another step in the right direction.