Porn used to be relegated to the 25¢ peep show shops. But the risk of being seen at one kept many away. Then VCR’s came along and you could watch it at home, but you’d still have to go somewhere to get the videos. Again there was a risk of being found out (getting caught walking out of that “special room” at the video rental store by a neighbor for instance). Then the Internet came along and allowed you to watch porn at home on your PC. No going out in public. Little risk of being exposed. The masses gathered around their flickering PC screens. 

Then the Internet went mobile and porn went along for the ride. It was the inevitable next step. Europe caught onto the mobile porn craze much sooner that the US, but it swept across the pond soon enough. Now it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. The release of the original iPhone made it easy to access porn on a mobile device because it had such a powerful web browser. Prior to the iPhone only about 6% of cell phone users surfed the web vs. 98% of iPhone users. Now, with a whole host of smartphones to choose from that surf the web with ease and the ever-increasing speeds of cellular data networks, it’s easier and faster to download porn videos. Yeah, your kids can do that on their smartphones.

So what are parents to do? Get rid of their kids’ cell phones? No. I don’t think that’s the answer. My teenager has a cell phone and I’m glad she does. We can reach her when we need to and she can reach us. But we do check her cell phone to see what she’s got on there. Cell phones can store lots of photos and videos so it’s good to check (without warning) what your kids might have stored on them. Our daughters cell phone has Parental Controls and we utilize them. They can help block all kinds of things. It’s not a matter of trust it’s a matter of removing a possible temptation. Plus it would be counter productive to have an Internet Filter on your home computer but give your kids a cell phone with unfiltered Internet access. So see if your kids cell phone can access the Internet. If so, and there is no way to filter it, you might want to have that feature turned off (just call your cell phone service provider).

We have lots to think about when it comes to technology and our kids. It can be a daunting task to keep up but the consequences of letting our guard down it to great. I’ll do my best to help make your task a little easier.