Explicit Internet Content and the American Teenager

What are these kids watching on their phones?

I understand. I was a teen once. And yes, it was a long, long time ago in a decade far, far away. But my teen years aren’t that much different than today’s teens. Then, as now, teens are dealing with finding out who they are, in constant conflict with their parents, and refining their tastes and interests in music, fashion, and pop culture.

While I didn’t have a cell phone when I was a teen, there were pagers and texting was in its infancy. Generally, we contacted each other using landline phones. Or we made plans when we saw each other at school. Teens of my time hung out with friends, went to malls, and watched movies. As we navigated high school, we had to juggle classes, homework assignments, tests, and college applications. Some of us worked after-school jobs or picked up younger siblings. We were in clubs, participated in sports, and tutored other students. All of those things are still common today.

But the main difference between teens of my time and teens today is social media. We didn’t have Instagram or Tik Tok. The internet wasn’t a part of American life until well into the 1990s. We had computers, large square boxes that made weird noises and weighed a ton. Teens today can connect with friends and family with a touch of a button. They can see, hear, and learn from a myriad of websites. This leads to the main point of this essay — Teens are exposed to explicit content before they’re mature enough to handle it.

Case in point, I overheard some teens at my job discussing and sharing their phones with each other. When one teen showed me the video, I jumped back in shock. The video started out innocently enough with various images then it ended with a naked man with very long genitalia. The kids laughed at my reaction as I tried to gather myself together.

I told them that the video was inappropriate and shouldn’t be shown or shared. The teens scoffed at my warning, claiming I’d do the same thing if I were their age. They found it funny. While it kind of was, after a while it just became vulgar. Unfortunately, being teens, they quickly went down the rabbit hole, sharing other videos involving a man having sex with various animals. Definitely not my scene!

Why are these videos so easily accessible to teens. One teen told me they can access tons of similar videos in a Discord group. I just shook my head. This shouldn’t be happening. The teens are minors and are breaking the law. Of course, they don’t care about all that. They want to laugh and have fun. But it was no longer funny. They traded crude jokes and shared their phones with their classmates. I soon developed a headache.

Parents need to step in. Your kids are watching adult content. Their young minds are developing warped ideas about sex and sexuality. Engaging in sexual relations with animals is not for teen viewing (or most adults for that matter). While most of the teens I spoke to were boys, some girls joined in as well, cracking jokes and laughing at the videos. This is just not appropriate.

A crackdown is coming. The teens will need to put away their phones. What they watch at home is for the parents to deal with. But in other venues, students need to show restraint and maturity. Sexually explicit videos have no place in front of a teen’s eyes. Hopefully, the teens will come to understand that and use their phones more responsibly.