"Portable Porn Machine"

[Rico_S]

In the “public school” (keeping 8th grade child catholic) thread a couple of posters referred to smart phones “portable porn machines.” I was curious if this is how most catholics on this site view these types of devices.

It’s interesting that all the Catholic High Schools in my area actually require some sort of tablet/smart phone/internet capable device for each student. Teachers will use resources available online and expect the kids to have access to those things–it is a requirement. While I’m sure there are rules about usage during class times, they are certainly permitted to use them throughout the day while not in class.

Our catholic middleschool does not allow usage of these devices during the school day–kids can only access the internet through the computer lab devices.

While I certainly acknowledge that there is inappropriate and potentially dangerous material to be accessed on the web, I am not a fan of a super restrictive school policy on these devices–especially in high school (and the 8th grade child in the original thread is just one year away).

I’ll elaborate more if there is interest, but for starters I have 4 girls 12-18 years of age and 3 of the 4 have smart phones. We have all social media acct info (for those we allow) and can access it anytime. We can look at their phones at anytime to check texts, call logs, whatever.

So, “portable porn devices” or legitmate tools for communication and accessing information?

 

[E_7]

Statistics show that children are accidentally exposed to pornographic content in the Internet before puberty. To avoid this, parents should take advantage of tools such as Safe Browser apps, and Internet Filter softwares like Net Nanny, Qustodio and Covenant Eyes to track and block inappropriate content. The good thing about these tools is that it works even in private/incognito mode. Same goes for schools, some schools use Internet filter softwares or network-based filters.

 

[Confiteor_Deo]

I think it’s different for each person. If someone is struggling with pornography and the need to get rid of any occasion of sin is necessary for them to overcome the sin, then they would need to get a dumb phone or get rid of their Internet or something. If this isn’t an issue, then it’s fine.

Personally, even though I own a smart phone myself, I’m not a big fan of using them very much and am supportive of school restrictions against using them. My teachers would ask us to take our phones out for activities or to look something up but I never did, they can’t force you to have a smart phone nor to use one, at least not in public school. The Internet can be very dangerous spiritually for children, though, so educating them and, if necessary, keeping a watch over them is probably a good idea.

 

[pensmama87]

I was a “good kid” and so my parents did not restrict our Internet access at all. This was 15 or so years ago and it was a huge mistake.

I would not go so far as to call it a “portable porn machine,” but I absolutely think there need to be very firm limits on their use, there need to be filters, and kids need to understand and know they can be checked up on at any time. Parents have to understand how they work and if kids sneak around they have to be disciplined appropriately.

I also think that parents need to be prepared for their kids to be exposed to pornography at some point. I already talk with my kids about magazine covers in the checkout lane at the store. I will probably let my kids use smartphones much later than their peers and with greater restrictions on their use. But I’m already weird in that regard and I’m OK with that.

 

[barhoram]

Let’s face it…many, if not most music videos, etc than can now be easily streamed, but considered normal viewing are borderline pornographic. Also, one wrong click on any smart phone…and boom Porn. It may not be the intent, but I’d say it’s getting to their devices.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

In short, yes.

In long; as someone who’s been trying to overcome an addiction to pornography, I find that my phones is probably my single greatest point of weakness. It’s ridiculous how easy it is to accidentally come across something awful, and how much easier than that it is to actively seek something out.

 

[Catholic1954]

My 13 year old step-granddaughter was caught sending nude pictures of herself to person/persons unknown from her smart phone. Not a big fan of those things for young girls. :nope:

 

[Regina7]

My oldest is 13 and she does not have her own phone nor will she. We have a house cell phone (cheaper than a landline) and while she was looking up something for her music class, she came across some I appropriate pics. And because of that one accidental encounter, my daughter has seen things that will never disappear from her brain.

Kids today are becoming so reliant on technology. I’ve had numerous college students tell me that their paper isn’t ready because they had problems with either their internet or computer. When I suggest that they can find this info in a book in the library, they look at me like I’m insane.

When my kids have an assignment that requires resources, I have them use (gasp) our set of encyclopedias or other books in our home or town library. It’s certainly not as fast as googling, but I think it’s a much better skill to figure out how to find an answer. They can cheat and use the computer when they are older.

Got off topic there…filters aren’t perfect. Even with a filter, I can access bad stuff. So, yeah, I’d agree that phones are portable porn machines. I see very little benefit for a child to have his/her own phone and a great potential for disaster.

FYI- My daughter’s friend had a cellphone and her parents monitored all her social media. Except they didn’t know about some obscure social media (I’ve never heard of it and can’t even remember it). On this app, classmates were telling this girl she was ugly and not good enough because she was adopted. She killed herself. She was 12. The parents had no freaking clue any of this was happening despite their vigilance.

 

[EmeraldOak]

Yep, that’s how I see them. It’s the same truth I see in the saying “Nothing good happens after midnight.” Well I say “Nothing good happens after you give children a smartphone.”

If parents absolutely need to stay in touch with their children then provide your children with a push-button mobile phone. Still though, some of those models allow pictures to be texted so you have to be careful with what model you get. I go with a bare bones prepaid phone. To me, providing young people with a phone with an internet browser is just inviting trouble.

 

[1ke]

It’s interesting that all the Catholic High Schools in my area actually require some sort of tablet/smart phone/internet capable device for each student. Teachers will use resources available online and expect the kids to have access to those things–it is a requirement. While I’m sure there are rules about usage during class times, they are certainly permitted to use them throughout the day while not in class.

If they are school issued devices or personal devices using the school network to access the Internet, the school can control content, access, and browsing via filters and controls on their network.

Outside the school network, the parents must be firmly in control of devices and Internet browsing. Apps, games, and social media are also in the parents’ purview.

Can smart devices become the medium for children to access inappropriate content? Absolutely if the parents are asleep at the wheel.

I’ll elaborate more if there is interest, but for starters I have 4 girls 12-18 years of age and 3 of the 4 have smart phones. We have all social media acct info (for those we allow) and can access it anytime. We can look at their phones at anytime to check texts, call logs, whatever.

Trust but verify is a good strategy. Kids don’t tell parents everything, kids can hide and sneak behind parents’ backs, and that isn’t a smart phone phenomenon, that’s been going on forever. But the MORE you allow into your home, into your child’s life and bedroom, unsupervised and unfiltered the MORE bad things you enable.

So, “portable porn devices” or legitmate tools for communication and accessing information?

Both,

 

[AClaire11]

I’ve never talked openly about this, but…I was given a laptop by my Catholic middle school in 7th grade, and had unsupervised internet access at home. I stumbled on pornography and chat rooms and ended up being addicted to porn for YEARS until I finally managed to kick it. Who knows what might have happened if I had a camera phone with internet access and all these apps like KIK and Snapchat? My husband and I have agreed that all internet access will be filtered and supervised, and that smartphones are not happening for our child (or children, if we’re blessed with more).

 

[1ke]

I’ve never talked openly about this, but…I was given a laptop by my Catholic middle school in 7th grade, and had unsupervised internet access at home. I stumbled on pornography and chat rooms and ended up being addicted to porn for YEARS until I finally managed to kick it. Who knows what might have happened if I had a camera phone with internet access and all these apps like KIK and Snapchat? My husband and I have agreed that all internet access will be filtered and supervised, and that smartphones are not happening for our child (or children, if we’re blessed with more).

I think many parents are naive. Yours were, sorry that happened to you!

My BIL/SIL have no wifi only wired Internet in the main living room, and no devices or TVs in bedrooms.

 

[DarkLight]

My oldest is 13 and she does not have her own phone nor will she. We have a house cell phone (cheaper than a landline) and while she was looking up something for her music class, she came across some I appropriate pics. And because of that one accidental encounter, my daughter has seen things that will never disappear from her brain.

Kids today are becoming so reliant on technology. I’ve had numerous college students tell me that their paper isn’t ready because they had problems with either their internet or computer. When I suggest that they can find this info in a book in the library, they look at me like I’m insane.

When my kids have an assignment that requires resources, I have them use (gasp) our set of encyclopedias or other books in our home or town library. It’s certainly not as fast as googling, but I think it’s a much better skill to figure out how to find an answer. They can cheat and use the computer when they are older.

Got off topic there…filters aren’t perfect. Even with a filter, I can access bad stuff. So, yeah, I’d agree that phones are portable porn machines. I see very little benefit for a child to have his/her own phone and a great potential for disaster.

FYI- My daughter’s friend had a cellphone and her parents monitored all her social media. Except they didn’t know about some obscure social media (I’ve never heard of it and can’t even remember it). On this app, classmates were telling this girl she was ugly and not good enough because she was adopted. She killed herself. She was 12. The parents had no freaking clue any of this was happening despite their vigilance.

As someone who’s taught college…by the time they hit college we were pretty much expecting students to be able to look up content online. By the time I hit grad school I was expected to be able to find the latest papers (which were most definitely not available to me in print) fairly quickly. I’d be cautious limiting the ability to find things online completely. Supervised, yes, but it’s becoming a skill that’s going to be expected of them.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

As someone who’s taught college…by the time they hit college we were pretty much expecting students to be able to look up content online. By the time I hit grad school I was expected to be able to find the latest papers (which were most definitely not available to me in print) fairly quickly. I’d be cautious limiting the ability to find things online completely. Supervised, yes, but it’s becoming a skill that’s going to be expected of them.

Things like law, philosophy, history, etc can be done with books, more or less. But there are fields where by the time a book is published, it’s outdated. I had many professors caution against using print sources without cross refrencing the data with a scholarly electronic source, particularly in STEM and international relations classes.

I also couldn’t imagine the time investment. One of my undergrad papers was on the role of international law in global cyber security, and in 35 pages I had well over 100 sources. If someone were to write a comparable paper using only hard copies, it would have taken a semester and they may not have even been able to access the perspectives I did without purchasing books and waiting for them to be delivered.

The ability to find relevant, quality sources is a real skill that students need to start learning and practicing well before college.

 

[Anglewannabe]

As much as a cell phone has advantages eg travelling out of town or truck drivers that need to make a delivery, IMO that is where it ends. I think that it is making people unsociable. Once someone call me to say ‘hi’ while they were shopping in a mall I found that offensive. Why didn’t he just do his shopping and make a coffee date later.

Or one liner texts just bug me. Once I saw a three girls decide to have their work break together, and once they got to the cafeteria, they all jumped on their phone and ignored each other Why bother going to break together if you aren’t going to talk ?

IMO all these phones are just creating rude people

 

[pensmama87]

As much as a cell phone has advantages eg travelling out of town or truck drivers that need to make a delivery, IMO that is where it ends. I think that it is making people unsociable. Once someone call me to say ‘hi’ while they were shopping in a mall I found that offensive. Why didn’t he just do his shopping and make a coffee date later.

Or one liner texts just bug me. Once I saw a three girls decide to have their work break together, and once they got to the cafeteria, they all jumped on their phone and ignored each other Why bother going to break together if you aren’t going to talk ?

IMO all these phones are just creating rude people

My mother in law calls people on the phone while she does her housework. She’s called me socially while running errands, too. It’s meant to be nice. She likes to.be sociable but even in her retirement she doesn’t have time to meet up with everyone. So she calls. It facilitates her social life since she no longer lives on the same street as everybody she knows.

One liner texts are supposed to be informative and non-intrusive. I told a friend about a hot sale at the grocery store that way after she and I had discussed the topic generally in person earlier in the week.

Etiquette rules do need to catch up, but it doesn’t do well IMO to assume people are being rude in the instances above. If you read a Jane Austen novel, you’ve got people socializing after dinner and some of them are writing letters.

I am really glad I have a smartphone now. It makes a lot of things in my life easier, and they are inexpensive (even plans if you go prepaid.) But they do present challenges that need to be addressed for sure.

 

[Regina7]

As someone who’s taught college…by the time they hit college we were pretty much expecting students to be able to look up content online. By the time I hit grad school I was expected to be able to find the latest papers (which were most definitely not available to me in print) fairly quickly. I’d be cautious limiting the ability to find things online completely. Supervised, yes, but it’s becoming a skill that’s going to be expected of them.

Absolutely- kids need to be taught how to find reliable sources online. No question about it. However, it seems that that is the ONLY way kids are being taught to find information. What happens when the technology isn’t working? When the Internet is down or the computer malfunctioning? These kids, at least the ones in my class, have absolutely no clue how to find information other than on the Internet.

 

[JimG]

Absolutely- kids need to be taught how to find reliable sources online. No question about it. However, it seems that that is the ONLY way kids are being taught to find information. What happens when the technology isn’t working? When the Internet is down or the computer malfunctioning? These kids, at least the ones in my class, have absolutely no clue how to find information other than on the Internet.

Not all information is available online. My brother was once trying to research a local landmark which no longer existed. He did not find it online. He went to the city library which had no record, then to the county historical society which had a photo somewhere but were in the process of reorganizing so could not come up with it. Later he went back and searched and with the historical society’s assistance found a photo and limited information. With that information he was able to locate the former owners of the place and do some personal interviews, which in turn elicited more information. Google doesn’t solve everything.

Does every scientific journal make their content available free online? Some charge hundreds of $ per year for subscription; I don’t know that they would undermine that income. Is every book available online? The Vatican library? Old maps? (I’v found many old maps to be historically useful.)

But porn is absolutely available online in abundance.

 

[Lea101]

I don’t know about schools there, but smart phones are necessary for 13 year olds and older. Teachers whatsapp important information to students on makeup classes, things to bring, change of venue in classes, pictures of answers to solutions, and so on. I remember using our phones during class when the teacher asks us to google a definition of a word.

Also children tend to feel extremely left out and will resent their parents for it (obviously it isn’t a good enough reason to get a child a phone). But I remember hating my parents because of it, lol.

My smartphone was honestly precious to me bc it’s the device i use for everything-social media, email, work and so on. I googled questions I’m too embarrassed to ask my parents. Besides finding out if a child watches porn, parents have this uncontrollable need to find out everything about what a child is doing, which can be really uncomfortable at times.

It’s a confusing issue for me bc I’m only 18, and I can understand the kid’s POV, but my sister is 11 and I’m also worried about what she’s doing online

I will admit I used my phone to count calories when I was restricting food, I googled how to kill myself (and found out very, very, very ‘useful’ tips on how to actually do it), how to hide scars, I would post on social media about what I was actually feeling. Now, if my parents were to be nosy, they would find out all of these things and probably got me the help I needed.

But then again, I’d rather endure torture by Donald Trump than to let my family see all of this stuff, and I would never forgive them for looking through my things, I wouldn’t even look them in the eye (I’m a huge introvert and I don’t like sharing things with people I know personally, which makes me weird)

So while smartphones can let the child do bad stuff, I don’t think banning them from children is the way you prevent kids from lust. I would say that teaching kids about faith and God’s forgiveness so they are able to overcome it should they come across anything is the way to go, but I’m not a parent. I’m one of those annoying people that thinks almost everyone will come across immorality and i shouldn’t go to extreme lengths to avoid it but rather focus on ensuring my child is able to resist, if that makes sense? It could change when I actually have a kid, though.

This is all so confusing for me.

 

[anon67074017]

Of course they are legitimate. They can be used for a wide variety of purposes that are both moral and immoral. Technology in itself is generally morally neutral.