Educating your child on the risks of inappropriate, adult content online should include discussions on sexuality and Internet safety. Young people turn to the internet to learn about many things, and you don’t want pornography to be their only source of information about sex.

Children and adolescents are even more vulnerable to the effects of internet pornography because of the fact that their brains are still developing. Along with junk food and video games, pornography is an artificial product that activates reward pathways in the brain more so than the naturally occurring stimuli for which these systems developed, leading an otherwise predisposed person towards excessive consumption and preference for this over naturally occurring alternatives. With continued exposure, the brain can become unresponsive to natural sources of pleasure and crave more, while making it harder for the same images to provide gratification, leading to an increase in use and search for more graphic content. Internet pornography can be considered a supernormal stimulus. While there is no official diagnosis of pornography addiction, there is evidence that repetitive viewing of pornography can re-wire the brain causing changes similar to those seen with other addictions by triggering the release of unnaturally high levels of dopamine. Youth that view pornography once a month or more are at a greater risk of developing depression, anxiety, unrealistic ideas about sex, unrealistic perceptions about body image, sexually permissive attitudes and a preoccupation with sex. While boys account for the majority of youth who search for pornography online, girls watch it as well.

With porn sites readily available on all digital devices, it’s inevitable that most kids will be exposed at some point, either unintentionally or intentionally. The average age of a child's first exposure to pornography is 11 years old.

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