Hacker News Reader

Comment by theclansman | Hacker News Reader

I feel like in our society we're always beta testing everything before researching its effects, shouldn't we research the effects of internet pornography in kids before allowing them unlimited access to it? I think the same thing should be done with social media. There's obviously a thin line where you have to use common sense (where do we start and where do we stop?) but the consensus has always been that this is adult content just like violent movies and alcohol so it should be enforced in at least some way.

View on HN

> shouldn't we research the effects of internet pornography in kids before

How do you propose we do that ethically?

Observational studies.

Problem with self selection (identify kids who decided to watch porn in the past, and compare with those that didn't) probably will not be that huge, when the people are only outraged about "kids" self selecting to watch porn.

I'm no sociological, or psychological scholar, but I can imagine that simply by asking kids in high school questions, you'll learn plenty.

There are many researches done and still being done on how addictive drugs are, or on the negative (or positive) effects of drugs. Eventhough they are both illegal and often rather dangerous. You don't need to feed a healthy 15 year/old a daily near overdose of cocaïne to learn about the effects of cocaïne on a young persons' brains.

I suspect the effects are mental/emotional and a research team may not be conducting statistical research like group A/group B types of studies but there could be value in research on current 18-25 year olds, their social/mental/emotional well being and gathering info on how early they may have consumed it, frequency, along with rates of clinical disorders. Surveys or research on college campuses would probably be the easiest method of gathering data for that age group.

You can interview people about their past experiences.

You can't interview someone about something before that something exists though, which is what the parent comment is proposing.

Internet pornography exists, last I checked (also when I first checked, but apparently that should have been illegal). What are you referring to?

They are talking about this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35787466

> I feel like in our society we're always beta testing everything before researching its effects, shouldn't we research the effects of internet pornography in kids before allowing them unlimited access to it?

Yes, apologies, I realised that as soon as I said it.

> "shouldn't we research the effects of internet pornography in kids before allowing them unlimited access to it?"

Is that a rhethorical question? People of all ages capable of using it already have mostly unlimited access to the internet (and thus to porn). Sans parents understanding the internet more these days, and trying to set limits and failing.

Question should be whether somebody should do research before trying to limit access state/country wide in various ways. Ie. bigotry vs some informed decision making.

Does the testimony of the adults who were negatively affected by it, both as adults and as children, count?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com