University of Alberta researcher Sonya Thompson reported in a news release that more than one in three boys had viewed porn on the Internet and almost one in four had watched sexually explicit DVDs or videos "too many times to count." For girls, the figures were eight per cent and four per cent respectively.
Most of the online viewings were deliberate. Three-quarters of the boys and almost half the girls surveyed said they had consciously searched for Internet pornography.
"If you're 13 and you can't put a number on the times [you have viewed pornography], that's a little frightening," Thompson told CP. "I hope parents think about their own values around this stuff and start talking to their kids."
Of the 429 students surveyed in 17 urban and rural schools across Alberta in 2003, nearly 60 per cent said their parents had no rules about what kinds of movies they watched, and more than half said no one bothered to monitor their Internet activity.
Thompson said parents are failing to address the social impact of "this whole subculture of kids and porn."
"Discussion of pornography and rules in the home.. ..make a difference in kids - overall access [to porn], particularly for boys," she said. "There [have] got to be rules and boundaries that are clearly articulated."
The study also found that only 13 per cent of students said there were devices on their home computers and TVs that blocked access to offensive materials.
But Cathy Wing, acting director of the Media Awareness Network, a non-profit group that promotes media literacy, contends that technology is no substitute for parental involvement.
"They don't teach kids the critical thinking skills they have to learn" in order to negotiate a highly sexualized media environment, she told CBC News.
"In a few quick years, pornography has come out of the sleazy fringe into the mainstream," an editorial in the Edmonton Journal noted.
"It's time for society to come up with better ways to help parents and their children navigate this new environment. Parents and schools are way behind the kids on this one."
