THE internet has many positive aspects but one of its darker facets is how it has made pornography accessible, affordable — often free initially — and anonymous.

Seventy-five per cent of teenagers admit to having viewed pornography by the age of 17 and the average age of first exposure is 12, meaning that some children will be much younger.

Around 60 per cent of them say that they first found pornography by accident, others will have been looking and others will have been introduced to it by someone else — sometimes this will be an abuser, trying to normalise what they are planning to do or are doing to a child.

People will often say that it is ‘just a bit of fun’ and that it ‘does no harm’ but it isn’t and it does — especially to young people.

Pornography works by stimulating the release of dopamine — the ‘happy feeling’ neurotransmitter in the brain. When watching pornography, the brain is overwhelmed with unnaturally high dopamine levels, like alcohol and drugs.

This increase of dopamine can become addictive but it also impacts on the brain’s natural ability to produce the feel-good neurotransmitter.

And this can negatively impact mood and personality leading to depression and anxiety. This happens no matter what your age is but with adolescents their brains are still developing and laying down neural pathways for the years to come.

If they are constantly overstimulated by watching pornography, they are more likely to have mental health issues, including depression, low self-esteem and poor body image, while there is an increased likelihood of emotional, social and sexual problems later in life.

They are more likely to display and trivialise sexually-aggressive behaviours because around 90 per cent of pornography contains violence and 97 per cent of this is aimed at women. Both girls and boys who view pornography are more accepting of sexual violence against women and believe rape myths, thinking that this is the norm.

Pornography teaches sexism and objectification — that it is more important for girls to be pretty than smart and that they must obey men.

You only need to look at the impact of misogynist Andrew Tate within schools and with young men to see how damaging this can be.

It also puts girls at risk of being victimised and abused — if you think this is the norm, how do you say no? Young people need proper sex education which challenges this.

Whether this is from conversations with parents, teachers or from programmes like our Purple Leaf education, they need to have open and honest conversations which are informed by something more than the pornography industry.

Talking to your child about pornography or sex may not feel particularly comfortable but isn’t it better coming from you than the likes of Andrew Tate? Check out our educational programmes here at purpleleaf.org.uk/education-training.

Our columnist Jocelyn Anderson is CEO for the West Mercia Rape & Sexual Abuse Support Centre (WMRSASC).