Statistics and Sources

SurveilStar provides these reference links to help parents and community leaders understand the issues the Internet brings to our families, communities, and children. We encourage all parents and community leaders to become familiar with these facts and findings.

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Did you know...

• Pornography is a $57 billion a year industry. In comparison, the combined revenues of all teams in the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NFL is $12 billion, and the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC is a mere $6.2 billion. (Sources: Internet Filter Review)
• 1 in 4 youth have unwanted exposure to inappropriate pictures each year (Source: The Internet Keep Safe Coalition)
• Nine of 10 kids aged 8-16 have viewed pornography on the Internet, often in the process of doing homework. (Source: London School of Economics January 2002)
• Students were most at risk for cybersex compulsions due to a combination of increased access to computers, more private leisure time, & developmental stage characterized by increased sexual awareness & experimentation. Both computer classes & colleges might need to recognize this increased vulnerability and institute new primary prevention strategies. (Source: Sexual Addiction and Compulsion: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention, March, 2000 (available by subscription))
• "Cyber-sex is the crack cocaine of sexual addiction", Jennifer P. Schneider, M.D., Ph.D (Source: The New "Elephant in the Living Room" Effects of Compulsive Cybersex Behaviors on the Spouse, from the book Sex and the Internet, 2002)
• "Cyber-sex reinforces and normalizes sexual disorders" (Source: Robert Weiss, Sexual Recovery Institute)
• One in five children ages 10-17 have received a sexual solicitation over the Internet (Source: Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation's Youth, sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. See also UNH Study Finds Many Youth Exposed to Sexual Solicitation, Pornography and Harassment on Internet, 19 March, 2001.)
• 74 percent of commercial pornography sites display free porn images on the homepage. (Sources: Child-Proofing on the World Wide Web: A Survey of Adult Webservers, 2001, Jurimetrics (abstract), Summarized in Youth and the Internet (Chapter 3, The Adult Online Entertainment Industry), National Research Council, 2002.)
• 45 percent of 1,000 surveyed teens admitted parents are the biggest influence in deciding whether or not to have sex
• 88 percent of teens say it would be easier to postpone sex if they could have more open, honest conversations with their parents
• Two-thirds of U.S. teenagers who have had sexual relations wish they had waited longer. (Source: National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, September 2003. Brief | Full survey)
• 20% of children age 10-17 have been solicited sexually online; that's 1 out of every 5 kids. (Source: netlingo)
• About one-third of youth (34%) admit to regularly communicating online with people they did not know in person. (Source: CyberAngels)