The objective of this scoping review is to investigate and bring forth knowledge about children and adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit digital content, with the aim of mapping out existing research, discussing emerging topics and key concepts, and identifying knowledge gaps when it comes to children and adolescents’ interactions with and use of digital pornography. The preliminary research question for this review is as follows: What characterises international peer-reviewed research articles on children and adolescents’ exposure to digital pornography in terms of research-questions, use of concepts, methods, theory and findings?

With the digital world at hand through smartphones and tablets, children and adolescents are faced with both opportunities and risks. Several studies confirm the prevalence of children’s exposure to pornography (Andrie et. al., 2021; The Norwegian Media Authority, 2022). This makes graphic sexual depictions available for children and youth in the digital sphere. The speed of technological developments and the continuous rise of various digital platforms might make it challenging for parents and teachers to keep track of the everyday digital lives of children and adolescents. This poses new challenges for society when it comes to safeguarding children from digital harms, as well as providing education that can teach children and youth about how to navigate safely in the digital sphere.

Studies analysing the content in pornographic videos have confirmed the prevalence of sexual violence, especially directed towards females (Shor 2019; Gervais & Eagan, 2017; Bridges et al., 2010). Vera-Gray et al. (2021) analysed over 150,000 titles appearing on the landing pages of three of the most popular porn sites; XVideos, Pornhub and XHamster, finding that the titles of one in eight videos had references to sexual violence. The frequency of video titles referring to sexual violence portray how pornographic websites can market sexual aggression as something desirable (Vera-Gray et al., 2021). The most popular pornographic tube sites such as Pornhub have garnered extensive criticism over the past couple of years, being accused of failing to monitor and remove illegal content, such as videos of sexual abuse involving children (Kristof, 2020). This shows how pornographic websites might contain both portraying content showing both simulated and real acts of violence, aggression and abuse.

Having knowledge about the topic of pornography and engaging children and youth in critical conversations about this topic is arguably an important, but complex task for educators in our digital era. How pornography plays out digital platforms is rapidly evolving (Adler 2024; Raustiala & Sprigman, 2019). Children and youth are not solely consumers of such material; they might also risk taking part as producers of digital sexual content themselves (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021). Furthermore, images and videos of sexual abuse created with generative artificial intelligence (AI) ‘deepfake porn’ plays part of the picture and is predicted to be on the rise (Reissman, 2023; The National Criminal Investigation Service in Norway, 2023).

Children and youth might have various personal experiences with pornography use, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse. For some, porn consumption might be experienced as a natural way to explore topics connected to sex and sexuality. The topic might be perceived as sensitive, emotional, and controversial, making it challenging for teachers to find ways to discuss the topic in classrooms (Goldschmidt-Gjerløw et. al., 2025; Frøvik et al., 2022).

The analysis will be conducted as a scoping review, and will follow the PRISMA Protocol for Scoping reviews (Tricco et al., 2018). Our review will systematise and analyse peer-reviewed published English empirical and theoretical research articles between 2006 and 2024 on children and adolescents’ exposure to digital pornography. The choice of the period from 2006 to 2023, relates to the rise of Internet “porn tube sites” from the year of 2006, enabling consumers to watch pornographic content digitally free of charge and without needing to download the content (Park et al., 2016). We will include research articles on children and teenagers ages 0-19. We will also include articles concerning pornography exposure and education related to the role of parents, teachers and school health nurses. Articles addressing the different facets of digital exposure and studies centered around various digital platforms where children and youth are exposed to or interact with pornography will also be included. This review will exclude studies primarily focused on investigation or detection of sexual abuse with children, as well as clinical studies from the field of medicine or psychology. We have developed the following search string: porn* OR "sexually explicit media" AND youth OR adolescent* OR "young people" OR teen* OR "young adult*" OR child* AND internet OR digital OR online OR web AND Expos* and conducted systematic searches in Web of Science, EBSCO (ERIC, ASP, Education Source, PsycINFO), Scopus and JSTOR. The databases were chosen as they were found to be of relevance for this study. The search was performed by a senior university librarian in cooperation with three researchers. The screening is conducted by aid of the AI-powered platform Rayyan. We are currently in the final stage of the first screening phase and will proceed with the full text screening of 234 articles. After deciding on the final selection of articles, an in- depth reading of each article will be conducted, followed by a thematic analysis. In this analysis, we will search for emerging topics, key characteristics, and key concepts. We will investigate the methodology of these papers, prevalence of pornographic consumption among participants, social predictors, the role of sexual violence and aggression, and whether the digital dimension is present in these studies. We will also assess the academic disciplines and journals, as well as the geographic location of the studies.

The review is currently in the full text screening phase and will proceed through in-depth reading and thematic analysis. We anticipate that the review will be completed well in advance of the conference, ensuring the presentation will provide comprehensive and detailed findings. Having access to sexually explicit digital content implies accessing videos portraying harassment, sexual violence and abuse. A substantial number of children and youth are facing the narratives of sexuality presented via pornographic websites, - narratives that may challenge gender equality, dignity and human rights, and affect the perspectives of children and youth on bodily integrity, boundaries, sexual violence and sexual consent. This undoubtedly challenges traditional educational practices related to social sciences, ethics, human rights and public health. Furthermore, this underlines the need for new knowledge to strengthen teaching practice about digital pornography. The review will provide new knowledge about existing and recent studies on the topic of children and youth exposure to pornography, and the possibility to map out the research landscape in this field. To have knowledge about digital pornography has relevance for the health, well- being and rights of children and youth in our digital society. This study is especially relevant for the field of youth studies and of education studies, as well as violence studies and public health studies. We anticipate finding that various studies employ a wide range of concepts to describe children's and adolescents' exposure to pornography and sexually explicit material, particularly in relation to the cultural context of each study. One other prediction is that the rapidly evolving digital dimension of pornography affecting the ways in which children and youth relates to pornography does not appear to be explicitly present in previous studies to any great extent.

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