Exposure to pornography can happen in two different ways, there’s direct exposure, which is when the child/adolescent would deliberate search and look for pornographic images/videos. The other way is through accidental exposure, whether it’s a pop up or a miss-click that could take the child to an explicit site. According to the article written by Johnston (2015), “children’s exposure to pornography is a global phenomenon and it has led to more young people deliberately seeking pornographic material online.”
Pornography exposure can lead to young males’ beliefs, attitudes, and sexual intentions being influenced negatively. Younger people who have been exposed to this material tend to become more sexually active than those who have not been exposed, and they become more sexually active at a younger age. The overall concept of accidental exposure leads to children and teens feeling unsafe on the internet. (Johnston, 2015). An alarming statistic found by Flood (2009) states that “53% of young people aged 11-17 have experienced something on the internet they thought was offensive or disgusting.” With that being said, these children are more likely to seek out this sexual content after the original exposure. Age strongly influences a child's understanding of and comfort with sexual content and innuendos. A problem arises due to this because the rate at which adolescents being convicted of possession of child pornography is on the rise (Flood, 2009).