Teenagers are developing a twisted view of sex from pornography they view on the internet, researchers warn.
Previous generations tended to learn about the facts of life from their parents and teachers in a respectful and moral way.
But a third of children surveyed said they had learned about sex from pornography and regarded the soulless images they saw as normal.
A third of children surveyed said they had learned about sex from pornography and regarded the soulless images they saw as normal (picture posed by model)
An alarming number of teenage girls believed they should imitate pornographic scenes they had seen on the internet.
Nearly nine out of ten teenagers aged 14 to 17 had looked at graphic images and nearly one in five viewed them more than once a week the survey found.
Researchers said a growing number of girls felt pressured into stripping on webcams for their boyfriends.
In one frightening confession, a girl of 15 told how her friends performed sex acts on webcams, replicating what they had seen on the internet or TV.
A 14-year-old girl said that if a girl sent a lewd picture of herself to her boyfriend, it was often sent on to his friends.
A third of youngsters surveyed said pornography was 'a good thing'. Boys as young as 14 admitted to swapping pornography at school, usually on their phones or computers.
The statistics were revealed on Channel 4's The Sex Education Show Vs Pornography, which was shown last night. It questioned 443 teenagers aged 14 to 17 at schools across the country.
Presenter Anna Richardson said: 'We are campaigning for kids to be protected from pornography.
'A lot of the material teens are exposed to is deviant, violent and unrepresentative of real sex. Our kids are looking at images in the playground that would shock most adults.'
Dear Miss A,
Since you have become the Facebook expert, what should I do about girls I date who want to friend me on Facebook? I don’t think I should have to explain the pics of me with other ladies prior to their existence.
Also, I did friend a gal I was seeing awhile back and refrained from posting pics of other girls I was seeing at the time to avoid questions. Is there an easy way to get out of friending without coming off as a jerk?
Not a Jerk
Dear Not a Jerk,
Thank you so much for reaching out to me. You should absolutely allow girls you are dating to friend you on Facebook. Red flags will be raised if you don’t allow women you are dating to friend you.
In the new social media world today, it’s more and more difficult to separate business from pleasure online. We use LinkedIn not only with our business contacts, but also to help link our friends to help them find jobs, clients, customers, and new business deals. Similarly, we are using Facebook to connect with old friends, new friends, work friends, and work contacts. I foresee a LinkedIn Facebook app or Facebook LinkedIn app or something to bridge the two.
I’ve always been a one-man kind of woman. I have no interest in going to dinner and dates with multiple men each week. I rarely find a guy I’m really into, and don’t have time to spare with guys I for whom I have no interest. So not that I would know, but from what I hear it’s much more difficult for people to juggle various people they are dating. Facebook and the LNS Forum have made Washington an even smaller town.
I would suggest that you go into Settings – Privacy Settings – Profile and under “Photos Tagged of You” select Custom and in “Edit Custom Settings” choose “Only Me”. This way one girl you are dating won’t tag a photo of you all together for your entire social world to see.
Right under “Edit Custom Settings,” you’ll see “Edit Photo Albums Privacy Settings”. Here you can control who sees each of your photo albums. You can set them so that nobody can see any of them, or that everyone can see a few of them, or even so that certain people can see certain albums.
So if you’re extremely shady, you could set it up so that one girl sees an album including a photo of her, and a different girl sees a different album with a photo of her. I wouldn’t recommend this, as sooner or later shady people get busted, but I know there are lots of guys who think they can get away with murder so try this at your own risk. I just wanted to make you aware that Facebook does have this capability.
Like everything else, new technology has applications to do good, but these same applications can be used to do wrong. You may think that Facebook is helping keep men honest, but there are also ways for them to use it to fool you. As a Wake Forest Politics major, I can tell you that the philosophies of Sun Tzu and Niccolò Machiavelli come in handy in Washington whether or not you are involved in Politics. My discovering that “all’s fair in love, war and the charity circuit” is part of the joke behind the name “Blonde Charity Mafia”. So Ladies, when it comes to relationships, remember the words of my hero Ronald Reagan — Trust, but verify!
I hope this is helpful! Let me know how things go, and what you think!
- Miss A
Although an official announcement has not been made, apparently MSI will launch a new netbook with Windows 7 soon. At least, that can be deduced by visiting a product page on its website where the new item is labeled as “Wind12 U230″.
This ultrathin notebook comes with the new AMD Athlon Neo X2 Dual-Core Processor at 1.6GHz, which is accompanied by an integrated graphics chipset (ATI’s Radeon HD 3200). Other features are similar to the ones found in the current Wind12 U210 notebook, including a
12.1-inch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768.
Also, it comes with 1GB of RAM that can be optionally increased up to 4 GB, and hard drives ranging from 160GB to 320GB. The standard version features a 1.3-megapixel webcam, Gigabit Ethernet, and a Wi-Fi module. In addition, it has a HDMI port, VGA connector, and three USB ports.
Bluetooth connectivity is optional, as well as a 6-cell battery that is supposed to provide up to 4 hours of battery life.
Although an official announcement has not been made, apparently MSI will launch a new netbook with Windows 7 soon. At least, that can be deduced by visiting a product page on its website where the new item is labeled as “Wind12 U230″.
The new super-thin laptop MSI X-Slim 320 is not only thin, it’s also lightweight at only 1.3kg. Featuring 13.4-inch display, the X320’s thickness is only 1.98cm (for comparison MacBook Air’ thickness is 1.94cm). Other selling point: up to 10 hours of battery life.
As far as the specs are concerned, we will have the average Atom Z530 at 1.6GHz, 2GB of RAM a resolution of 1366×768 on a 13.1” LCD, wifi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, WCDMA for a price which seems to be around 800 USD.
- Intel® ATOM™ Processor
- Genuine Windows® XP Home
- 3G+ embedded modem
- 10” wide LCD display
- Super lightweight, at 1.19kg.
- Black, White, Pink, All in one color
 | Home versatility |
| 11.1" to 15.4" widescreen displays |
| Dolby® Home Theater™ audio |
| Touch-sensitive controls |
| VeriFace™ face-recognition security |
| Performance and value |
| Glossy blank Marble-like Finish |
| VibrantView Widescreen |
| Touch-sensitive controls |
| VeriFaceTM face-recognition security |
| OneKeyTM Rescue System |
| Operating system The main control program of your system. See Productivity Software category for Office applications.  | Choices: HP Mobile internet (Mi) software built on Linux | |
| Processor A faster processor supports more efficient operations and applications performance | Choices: Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor N270 (1.60GHz) | |
| Memory Use more programs at once and make them run faster with more memory | Choices: 512MB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm) 1GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm) 2GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm) | |
| Hard drive Store your applications, data, digital music and digital photos on your hard disk drive | Choices: 8GB (Solid State Drive Flash Module) 16GB (Solid State Drive Flash Module) 80GB 4200RPM Hard Drive 32GB (Solid State Drive Flash Module) | |
| Graphics card Bring your favorite applications and games to life | Choices: Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 | |
| Display The window to applications, the Internet and more | Choices: 8.9" diagonal WSVGA LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1024 x 600) 8.9" diagonal WSVGA LED Anti-glare Widescreen Display (1024 x 600) 10.1" diagonal SD LED BrightView Infinity Widescreen Display (1024 x 576) | |
Laptop computer screens that flip around to become tablet PCs could be an increasingly common sight near future. Convertibles, as they are called, are the newest and hottest – but not the only - offering in the increasingly diverse laptop market.
A convertible is more than just a laptop with a swiveling screen. The screen also accepts input from a pen just like a PDA – Personal Digital Assistant – or dedicated tablet PC.
Convertibles have given laptops a dual personality – use it normally or flip the screen around and snap it down on top of the keyboard to make a full-fledged table PC. Another cool feature: if you’re trying to show somebody what’s on the screen, you simply swivel it towards them – great for presentations.
With all these cool features, why doesn’t everyone own a convertible? Price mostly – they can cost several hundred dollars more than a standard laptop. Experts predict this will change as more people buy them – economy of scale. On top of that, laptop prices have literally crashed in the last 5 years making them affordable replacements for desktops.
Slate-style tablet laptops – the screen is fixed on top of the unit – are less popular, but widely praised by a select group of die hard scribblers. These units are akin to a PDA, only larger - the dimensions of a standard pad letter-sized of paper - and work in much the same manner.
Table PCs have been around for about 15 years, but sales have always been just a few percent of the total laptop market. To type, you need an external keyboard. Most people prefer typing to writing and – even today – handwriting recognition software leaves something to be desired. Most require a new writing style or a “learning” process.
Full sized tablet PC - Motion Computing LE1600 8.5” x 11”, 3.13 lbs.
Unlike underpowered PDAs, tablet PCs are full-fledged computers capable of running any Windows program. They also cost several hundred dollars less than convertibles and have been on the market longer. Lack of a swiveling screen makes them more robust and lighter, as well, according to proponents. Another segment in growth is that of the ruggedized laptops. They are attractive to anybody who’s ever dropped or banged an expensive laptop causing permanent damage. Ouch, and get out that wallet: just the screen alone could cost $1000 to replace.
| Intel® Atom™ Processor1 N270 (1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB, 512K L2 Cache)9 |
| Genuine Microsoft® Windows XP® Home with SP3 |
| 1024MB DDR2 533MHz SDRAM Single Channel Memory (512MB onboard and 512MB soDIMM card in slot)10 |
| 160GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive4 |
| Chassis with Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 and Mobile Intel® 945GSE Chipset11 |
| Gateway 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®6 |
