Teenagers are increasingly getting addicted to internet pornography, with dire effects in and out of the classroom. An Edinburgh-based charity is tackling the issue with pilot lessons in four secondaries. Sam Phipps explains

Opponents of pornography have tended to been seen as socially or morally conservative, perhaps plain prudish. They have not usually worried about neuroplasticity – the way our brains are shaped by repeated and intensive stimuli.

Yet in the last decade or so the porn industry has grown drastically, and with it instant access around the world to online material that once would have been niche for the darkest fantasists.

Now a growing body of scientists and researchers are linking a host of ills – including social anxiety, body dysmorphia, criminality and aggressiveness, as well as sexual dysfunction – to compulsive or obsessive porn viewing.

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