The Internet, sex and adolescents: a new reality. Young Spanish university students’ survey

Objective: the present study aims to know the reality of the relation between young people and sex web pages in Spain.

Material and methods: anonymous survey, handled to 225 university students, in the University Campus of Teruel, throughout 2010.

Results: two hundred surveys were analyzed; females answered 57% of them. The average age was 22 ± 4 years old (18-26). The average starting age of visiting the net was 13 ± 7 years old (7-20). We found that 82% of the survey group visit web pages of sex (from them, 37% do it normally, with a clear predominance of males); 29% initiated their visits between 11 and 15 years old and 32% between 15 to 18 years old. Of the frequent visitors, 68% are males, and 32% females; 19% started their visits at school. From the owners of a personal computer, 63% frequent more those web pages than those who use a familiar computer.

Conclusions: the greatest pornography consumers in the Internet are the teenagers between 12 and 17 years old. One of every three responders usually visits this kind of pages, and does it more often when having a personal computer. Considering these results, the concern of parents, educators, doctors, pediatricians, publicists, politicians and industry is demanded in order to protect and control the children and teenagers. Campaigns about this topic are requested.