The reason I have my doubts is that with the ubiquity of electronic access, combined with the fact that kids are inherently geared to learn new things such as technology (there are ways around filters using anonymous proxy routers if you know how to use them, which you can find in 10 seconds on Google - the only downside is the site may load a few seconds slower), means that parents are often behind the eight ball. Back in high school, my school paid for a ridiculously expensive network administration system through Nortel but a group of students used a keystroke logger to get the passwords that were needed. Most never cheated on anything in their life, but it was more about the challenge of being told to do something that the teachers bragged was impossible. It took about 2 days to get access to planning schedules, grade books, and emails. This was an enterprise system with a five-figure price tag that was beaten with a free, low cost hack.
(I mean, I've seen employers remove Internet Explorer entirely from a system to stop net access, thinking that would stop the problem, yet most younger people realize its built into the operating system so you can actually start browsing from any, boring desktop folder if you change the location to reference the http instead of the hard drive. This gets the system to launch a browsing session.)
You consider there is now Internet access at the local library, many new McDonald's, Starbucks, or Panera Breads, and it becomes quickly apparent that, unlike television in the older days, the Internet cannot be suppressed. A parent may make it inconvenient to access until 16 years old, but beyond that, it's going to be virtually impossible to stop a determined (and somewhat intelligent) teenager from seeing what he or she wants to see.
An interesting side note: What is probably most concerning is that several sociological studies show that the highest Internet pornography usage is among states with the highest proportion of traditional religion and the lowest among states such as California. The theory is that people want what they are told they can't have. It's the same reason we have 19 year olds in college die of alcohol poisoning and you don't see this happen in Germany. Here, alcohol is a forbidden fruit only for adults; there, it is something that even a child can have, in moderation, and they know the dangers of it. The stricter the limitations placed on people, the more they seek out and consume the forbidden thing when they get older and no one is around to see. You can read the study itself here.
You raise a lot of points in your reply. And I will admit that when I went away to college, that I picked up a box of (formerly forbidden) Cocoa Puffs for my first purchase. (Mom had no problem with Trix or Quake, but Chocolate cereal stepped over the line.)
I’m very familiar with the ways around filters, and even with college students, as I was a Mac small administrator at a small lib arts college in the post-Internet/pre-web days. Back then it was FTP and gopher. Of course, the most talented students were already messing around. I was also trying to write phony login script programs in BASIC under ETOS for the PDP-8 in the 70’s. (the biggest trick was getting the “no-scree-echo for the password. I almost had it licked by “opening” the ptr: (paper tape reader) as a device. For these reasons I like a hardware gate in a locked closet. Any keyboard logger will have to get around the one that I will have already been installed.
I guess I am talking about raising the kids so differently that they are only vaguely aware that there is a Google, or proxy servers, etc. My eldest are girls, and not particularly technically inclined.
Getting back to your point about certain problems being worse in religious environments, you have to be careful. I’ve been around enough to know that those kids raised with parents who are permissive on hard drugs and general supervision get in big trouble, and early on, too. The ones who were given condoms got in more trouble, and earlier, too.
The study you point to measures credit card purchased, online porn. Or, the most available, private porn out there. I would maintain the accessibility is a large part of the enabling factor, not the “naughty” factor. If it were mere curiosity, the free Internet has more than enough to satisfy that.
It is a problem, and priests all over the country affirm that. They also say it is a growing problem, again, easy accessibility, which I suppose was your original point long ago. But credit card purchases are being made by full grown men, not kids. If increasing accessibility increases the problem for adults, limiting it should have an even more salutarious effect with youngsters.
Of course, all this crap makes the parents’ job that much harder, and I have a big advantage over many parents, in that I have worked in IT for a LONG time, and know the in’s and out’s. I do know families that don’t even HAVE a computer in the house at all. Real old school. They live in Dixon, IL (Reagan’s home town) and the dad walks to his job at the Dept. of Transportation! Half of their 12 children are grown up, all are able, and none have shown any evidence of seeking forbidden fruit.
As my work relies on a well-equipped Internet PC setup, that is not an option for me. Different families will have to come along with different ways to protect their children. But I won’t throw my hands in the air and give up.