When Porn Appears on Instagram

Source: UnSplash/Katka Pavlickova

Instagram has long been viewed as a cute, harmless social media site where you can post and share pictures with the world. Unfortunately, what many parents do not realize is that Instagram occasionally may be a gateway to pornography as its usage rises with teens and young adults.

Instagram is the second most popular social media site (with Snapchat being the first) among Millennials. Users under 35 years old make up more than 70 percent of Instagram's active accounts around the world.

The pornography industry has found a way to access the minds of the young through this app. What this means is that a child may unwittingly be exposed to pornography or highly sexualized material by accident that is hidden behind certain emojis and hashtags.

Fruits like peaches, cherries, bananas, and eggplants are some of the more popular ones that access porn. The sweat or splashing water image is known as symbolizing sexual fluids or ejaculate. The symbols and combinations continue to proliferate as concerned parents catch on. In a way, it's a social media variety of the cat trying to catch the mouse with the mouse conjuring up new, innovative ways to stay one step ahead.

As an Instagram user myself, I'm not here to admonish Instagram just as much as I wouldn't admonish the internet or other forms of mass media (television, movies, etc.). But as a parent, I also would say the responsibility lies with us to ensure that we warn our children about the reality of being exposed to pornography.

Before you dismiss your child's emojis on Instagram or via text to another child as cute or innocuous, you might want to check again.