They’re growing up in a much more X-rated universe than their parents did.
A new study conducted on behalf of children’s charity the NSPCC, says the majority of children are exposed to pornography by their early teens.
Around 94% of 14 year olds have seen some kind of online porn and more than one quarter (28%) of 11 to 12 year olds has accessed it.
Smartphones are a common way for children to access X-rated sites, with 33% of those surveyed saying they first saw pornography on a handheld device.
The survey also discovered it was more likely for youngsters to find material accidentally (28%) than seek it out (19%).
The child protection charity said an entire generation of children was at risk of being “stripped of their childhoods” through exposure to pornography at a young age.
More than three-quarters of children surveyed – 87% of boys and 77% of girls – felt pornography failed to help them understand consent, while half of boys (53%) saw it as a realistic depiction of sex.
One 13-year-old girl told researchers: “A few of my friends have used it for guidance about sex and are getting the wrong image of relationships.”
Another said: “It can make a boy not look for love, just look for sex, and it can pressure us girls to act and look and behave in a certain way before we might be ready for it.”
Some children’s approach to sex was also informed by pornographic scenes, with more than a third (39%) of 13 to 14-year-olds boys saying they wanted to copy the behaviour they had seen.
One of the 13-year-old boys said: “One of my friends has started treating women like he sees on the videos – not major – just a slap here or there.”
Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, said: “In recent years the Government and internet providers have done much to restrict children’s access to pornography but there is no room for complacency – parents, teachers, regulators and the digital industry must not let up in efforts to do so.
“They must also do more to help children who do see porn to understand what they have seen. We know from the research that very many children are shocked, confused or disgusted by what they see and it is our duty to help them to question, challenge and make sense of it.”