From the UK, a former editor for Britian’s version of Maxim magazine, called “Loaded” discusses his conclusion that pornography is “the most pernicious threat facing children today.”

I asked the teenagers: ‘On a scale of one to ten, how likely would you say it is that boys and girls your age are watching porn online?’

The reply was a chorus of tens, nines and one eight.

When I asked the children if there were parental controls on the internet at home, they all said no, their parents trusted them. They all admitted their parents had no idea what they were watching, and would be shocked if they did know.

Martin Daubney was involved in the making of a documentary called “Porn on the Brain.”

What I saw during the making of the film changed my opinion of pornography forever.

The true stories of boys I met whose lives had been totally taken over by porn not only moved me to tears but also made me incredibly angry that this is happening to our children.

And the looks of revulsion on those poor girl’s faces in the playground enraged me.

I feel as if an entire generation’s sexuality has been hijacked by grotesque online porn.

After seeing some definitive research on pornography and addiction, Daubney quips:

If porn does have the insidious power to be addictive, then letting our children consume it freely via the internet is like leaving heroin lying around the house, or handing out vodka at the school gates.

And this toxic effect is filtering down directly into young girls’ lives.

The article is well worth the read. But it is shocking…

source dailymail.co.uk

photo via flicker @BlockSim

16 billion texts? 3.2 hours on social networks? Send 175 million tweets?

Wow.

The world has changed.

It wasn’t that long ago that smartphones were mostly in the hands of business professionals with Bluetooth earpieces walking through an airport. Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile OS ruled these devices. Now, it seems, almost every cellular device marketed is a smartphone. Average consumers, professionals, even children and teenagers have these devices.

In 2007, Apple wowed the world with the iPhone. That was less than 7 years ago. Think about it. The ability to send 16 billion texts is greatly enhanced with a Qwerty keypad instead of a 10-digit keypad where you used to have to press the #2 three times to get the letter C to display. Facebook’s catastrophic growth, current focus on mobile, and large ad revenue is from these little (and more and more often, large), plastic-lined network communicators. Twitter can thank these mobile kiosks for its meteoric rise as well. When’s the last time you tweeted from a desktop or laptop computer?

The world has changed.

My daughter was born in 2007. She will grow up in a world where video calling someone has always been a possibility, where computers and screens will constantly be vying for her attention and stares, and real human connection will seemingly be trumped by sharing real-life experiences on an online bulletin board for whoever isn’t with you to see.

The world has indeed changed.

How are we going to interact with this new world? How will the billions and billions of screens either help or hurt humanity? More pressing for me personally: How will my kids turn out in a world seemingly ruled by texts, tweets, likes, apps, and pictures?

Hmmm…

HT ACS Technologies