John Rustin | March 17, 2016 | SHARE: 
This week, NC Family president John Rustin talks with Roxanne Stone, editor-in-chief of Barna Group, about a new report, The Porn Phenomenon, which highlights the growing use and acceptance of pornography among teens and young adults.
INTRODUCTION: Roxanne Stone is editor-in-chief of Barna Group, where she also serves as general editor of the Frames book series. She previously served as an editor at Christianity Today, and as editorial director at Relevant Magazine. She speaks, trains, and consults in the areas of faith and culture, Millennials, social justice, and church leadership.
Roxanne is one of the lead designers and analysts of a new Barna report, called The Porn Phenomenon, which is due for a full release in April 2016. Barna released a preview of the study earlier this year, and we are going to be talking with Roxanne about some of the study’s findings regarding the growing acceptance and use of porn by young people in our culture.
Before we begin, I’d like to issue a friendly warning to parents that some the subject matter we are going to be discussing today might not be suitable for young children, so please use your discretion. You can also tune into the show later on the NC Family website at ncfamily.org.
JOHN RUSTIN: Roxanne, one of the most troubling findings from the report is that young adults today are seeking out porn more than any other generational group. If you would, define young adults for us, and tell us more about this finding?
ROXANNE STONE: Young adults for this study include 18-24 year olds, and then we also look at 25-30 year olds, as well. But what we’ve really found is that that 18-24 age group is really where porn use escalates considerably. We see it first really beginning among teenagers, but there’s still some ambivalence and shame even around pornography for teenagers, in part, [because] they’re still living at home, their parents maybe still have more control over their electronic devices, and their time is much more structured. And then, once kids are going to college and really out living on their own, that’s when we really see the escalation of porn usage. And there are a lot of reasons for that beyond just being away from parents. It’s also a time when traditionally people are exploring more and they’re dating more, they’re often single, and then once you kind of hit that point of age 25-30 more people are in serious relationships, they’re getting married and so that porn usage kind of slows a little bit. It’s definitely true that young adults both use porn more often and are just less concerned about their porn usage. They talk about it more openly with their friends. We found that 43 percent of young adults say that it’s just assumed we all look at porn sometimes, when they talk to their friends. A full 17 percent say we encourage each other to talk about porn, we talk about it in a positive, light-hearted way, and another 36 percent say when they talk about porn with their friends, it’s just sort of neutral, we don’t discuss the morality of it. So when you look at those numbers together, only four percent of young adults say that when they have conversations with their friends about porn, that it’s viewed as a negative thing. The 96 percent are either neutral, accepting, or encouraging when they talk about pornography usage with their friends.
JOHN RUSTIN: When we look at addiction, and certainly there can be an addiction to pornography, the younger the onset, the more likely an individual is to become addicted. And I know the report also found that many young adults report viewing porn for the first time before puberty. Talk about this if you would, and how this compares to older generations in terms of exposure?
ROXANNE STONE: We found that more than one quarter of young adults first viewed pornography before puberty, so 27 percent, and that is significantly higher than even the GenX cohort, where only 13 percent said they started viewing porn before puberty, and that number just goes down among Boomers and elders. So you’re seeing essentially a doubling even from from the GenX down to the very next generation of Millennials, who viewed porn before puberty. And really that’s honestly just reality of access. You don’t have to go to a store to get porn anymore; it’s not something you have to sneak a magazine around; there’s so much access to it, and it’s a very anonymous kind of access. You just log onto your computer and you’re able to view porn within seconds, and it’s on your phone.
One thing we did in the study is we sort of tried to clarify whether people are actively seeking out porn, or coming accidentally coming across it, because of easy access to pornography, and the sort of pushing of it on people. And we found some pretty distinct differences, especially among teenagers, that they are just coming across it accidentally quite a lot. And then in addition as we saw, there’s just a real cavalier attitude toward it among friends that it’s really not a big deal; it’s just part of the reality of our lives.
JOHN RUSTIN: On that last note, another obviously troubling finding from the report is a growing acceptance of pornography among young adults and teens. In fact, I know that you asked survey participants to rate pornography against some other issues, including things like recycling. Tell us what you found as far as attitudes about porn verses other topics.
ROXANNE STONE: What we saw when we asked this question, we listed a number of bad things a person could do, and we asked people to rank how bad those were. We asked all of the generations, and so when you look at teens and young adults in particular, you see three things that we asked that were porn-related are literally the last three things on their list of ranking, so they rank them as lower than any of these other “sinful” things that you can do. And then we saw that teens and young adults, the worst thing on their list of a bad thing to not do is to “not recycle.” And then we saw thinking negatively about someone with a different point of view was after that. And then way down on the list was viewing pornographic images, erotic or pornographic content, and watching sexually explicit scenes on TV or on a movie, those are the bottom three things that are ranked. And it’s a little different for adults so we see a real shift from the 25 and up compared to the 25 and under. What you’re really seeing in terms of that shift, there’s also a real sense of when you look at the teen and young adult rankings of just anything that really affects someone else is ranked quite high on their list, and there’s a real sense for them I think that viewing pornographic images is really something that’s just a personal decision, and it really only affects you, and it’s really only about your personal morality. Whereas, not recycling, that’s like an entire society perhaps, the whole world. Really as Millennials, we’ve been brought up to be part of a very pluralistic society so that we’ve privileged that as a very high value in our society. So there’s plenty of cultural effects of pornography that isn’t recognized there.
JOHN RUSTIN: Roxanne, many parents, pastors, and teens themselves can feel overwhelmed by the proliferation of porn in our culture today, and clearly it is an expansive problem among people of all ages. I know you mentioned just kind of approaching this with a significant measure of grace, but what can parents and churches do to help those in our culture today who are really overwhelmed by the accessibility and the proliferation of porn and are really seeking a way out?
ROXANNE STONE: Sure, I just want to add this in: churches and Christians are already making a difference. We saw when we did the study that practicing Christians, those who attend church regularly and say faith is very important to their life, they are so much less likely to be using pornography on a regular basis than the general population. We saw age, gender, and faith are really the three biggest factors in frequent porn use. And so women are much less likely to use it than men, young adults are more likely to use it than the rest of the generations, and practicing Christians are much less likely to use it than the general population. And so there’s something to celebrate there already, certainly, and recognize the ways that we’re already equipping people just through discipleship, through church attendance, to fight back against this. But even so, we see that the third most likely group to be using pornography is male practicing Christians, ages 13-24, so 41 percent are using it on a regular basis. So it is still a problem. One of the findings in the study that really opened all of our eyes is how few pastors and ministry leaders feel equipped to do anything about this. It’s such a huge problem, and there’s such a sense of really paralysis in terms of how to fight this, because it does feel ubiquitous, it does feel like you’re fighting against this massive cultural tide, and you hear people say, “Oh we just assumed you were looking at pornography.” The anonymous factor is huge, people aren’t going to come to some pornography workshop, and or small group accountability kind of thing, like they’re just not going to, and those kind of things aren’t working in the same way that they maybe used to. We did a controlled group of Christians who were using filtering accountability software, and we found that those groups were much less likely to be viewing porn. Those kinds of software filtering accountability really do seem to work. And for parents, [what they can do] is just to have conversations with their kids, and recognizing that this is part of their life, so not sort of side-stepping it or being afraid to talk about it because they are talking about it with their friends, and it is part of their life. So [talk] about it with a sense of mission in terms of how you talk about it, not just saying this is wrong, don’t do it, but helping kids understand why this is dangerous in terms of sexual ethic, thinking about what a healthy sexual ethic looks like, and what it’s going to look like to have a healthy sex life and relationship with a future spouse. Being able to talk about how this is [porn] is a real counterfeit; pornography is not what sex really looks like. And that’s going to require parents to be vulnerable and be able to talk about like what is it about porn that is not quite real, so it doesn’t feel like such a taboo subject and kids sort of feel like there’s something really good about abstaining from pornography, not just because it’s wrong, but because it will hurt something that’s ultimately good. So, if we can reframe the conversation, so it’s not so much about shaming, but about celebrating what is good, I think those are some of the best ways that we can approach it as parents and as ministry leaders.
JOHN RUSTIN: Great, well thank you for sharing that. And I think a great place to start in initiating those types of conversations might even be with a review of this study, and I want to give you an opportunity to tell our listeners where they can access that. So Roxanne where can our listeners go to find out more about Barna Group, and to examine the findings of this very important study, The Porn Phenomenon?
ROXANNE STONE: You can find all of our initial release at barna.org, and we will be releasing the full study in April. So you can sign-up to pre-order that now at a discount.
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