MacKayNet - Rob MacKay

The results of this survey featured in eMarketer are truly amazing. Although it's from the U.K., it probably portends a trend here in the U.S. as well.

The "UK Children Go Online" study, for which over 1,500 young people between the ages of 9 and 19 and more than 900 of their parents were surveyed, found that among those young people who go online least once a week:

* 57% have come into contact with pornography online (compared with 16% of parents who say their children have seen porn online)

* 46% say they have given out personal information online (while only 5% of parents realize it)

* 33% have received unwanted sexual or lewd comments online (though only 5% of parents are aware of it)

If seeing is believing, then seeing porn is certainly having an impact on our young people. I remember the effect that a single issue of Playboy had on me in 1976. (And I know where things went from there.) I cannot fathom the depth of the impact that online porn would have had on me at that age.

Today's kids are seeing things that they can never "unsee" just like I did, but they are seeing this stuff with greater frequency and in extremely graphic detail. It is inevitable that this is affecting our cultural values. Porn seems to have permeated our society so much that it has almost ceased to carry any stigma at all among much of the population. I'll never forget the first time I saw a teenager proudly wearing a "Porn Star" t-shirt. Think about what had to happen before this could become even remotely acceptable.

There has been much discussion this week concerning Family Video and the alleged adult section inside their new store in town. Assuming that they really are renting porn videos, should we really be surprised? Before the BlockBuster/Hollywood Video oligarchy, many local video stores in the area had an "adults only" section. Folks, if the statistics are true, then the video store is a yawner compared to what's going on in your living rooms!

This is something we have to deal with in our families and in our church. It's in the community, and I don't think that's going away -- maybe ever. If we're going to petition this retailer, fine. Maybe it is justifiable. But let's at least couple that with a look inside. We have much optical lumber to remove when it comes to pornography!