The Internet – a corrupting influence?

Is the internet a corrupting influence?  Martin Huiskens thinks so:

We live in a world where parents are bullied into buying computers for their children.  Children now have their own computers in their bedrooms and internet on their phones.  Many children now spend on average 6 hours a day lost in cyberspace.  This has created a New World Order where 12 year-old girls and boys are bullied by “sexting” and groomed by paedophiles on chat rooms… As a result, for many children, their lives have become hell on earth.

The world was a safer place when I was growing up in the 70s.  We had no internet but we had our imagination, our books, our musical instruments, and there was always a football to kick about with our mates.  We talked to our mates face to face when I was a child.

The internet is not only dangerous for the wellbeing of children.  It also has its dangers for the wellbeing of adults.  More and more adults are leading isolated, lonely and depressed lives.  The biggest killer of men worldwide is not war or addiction.  The biggest killer of men today is suicides with 80% of suicides being male.

Pornography is addictive.  If I want to use the internet, I either go to the library, or I plug-in with my laptop when having a coffee at a cafe.   The poem Butterflies of Desire was written about the dangers of pornography.  I decided that my life is better off with neither television nor internet access in my house; this is to protect my home from Satanic, subliminally corrupting influences.  My home is there to protect my heart and soul.  (The following poem is published in Natural Manhood from Prison towards Inner Freedom by Martin H.):

Butterflies of Desire

I want you
I need you
I suppress my need for intimacy
With the real warmth of a real body
For a look upon
Sex
On DVDs
Cinema screens
The internet
Live! On Stage!
In magazine
In saunas
In dark rooms
Parks…
The look of lust that’s in your eyes
As you sport a passion that I can only dream of
The way you lovers go at it
With bodies like GODS
Bareback
Without shame
With wild abandon
Carefree.
Your siren calls me –
I kid myself that I am free:
Days,
Weeks
Months go by…
Your call beckons
I binge
Surrender
Helpless
Hopeless –
Spend money I don’t have
Spend time with faces
I don’t know
People whose bodies I see
(But not their eyes)
Just for a touch
Of your cold, cold, cold embrace
I substitute make-believe
(So unlike the real touch of a real lover!)
Leaving me spent
Isolated
Ashamed.
I sit here
Exhausted,
Filled with remorse
Sick of all my (broken) promises.
Butterflies of desire
Line my stomach
Filling my cup to the brink
Yet here I remain:

Ravenous