Children as young as 8 admit addictions to Internet porn as smartphones and tablets make sexual images easier to find



70pc of teenagers had viewed pornography online

Linked to poor performance in school and feelings of isolation



Elementary school children are developing addictions to online pornography in a worrying trend that some scientists believe is on the cusp of becoming a national epidemic.



Several studies have discovered links between viewing online pornography and problems including social isolation, performing badly in school and behavioral issues.



Seven out of ten teenagers have viewed pornography on the Internet with boys at greater risk than girls, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in California.

Scroll down for video

Addiction: Seven out of ten teenagers, both girls and boys, had viewed Internet pornography before the age of 18

The study also found that 15 per cent had lied about accessing an inappropriate website.

The growing problem puts pressure on the U.S. Government after a UK campaign f or automatic blocks on porn and introduction of web filters to make adults who want to view pornography ‘opt in’.

The increasing accessibility to smart phones and laptops has led to a surge in numbers of children coping with porn addiction, according to an Australian addiction specialist Robert Mittiga.

He said that in some cases children were even watching pornography at school and sharing files with classmates.

'I BECAME ALMOST NUMB TO IT'

Nathan Haug, 17, pictured, is the oldest of eight children living in a Mormon home in Alpine, Utah.

He became addicted to online pornography when he was 12.

He told ABC: 'I became almost numb to it. It became such a part of my daily routine.' The teenager would look at images on the family computer and quickly learned how to hide his problem. His life became conflicted as his addiction sat at odds with the rest of his time spent with family, at school and being an active member of the church.

Haug eventually sought help from his parents and underwent a church program to help him confront his issues.

'I HATED THAT I COULDN'T STOP'

Breanne Saldivar, 22, pictured, from Austin, Texas, developed an addiction to online porn when she started high school. She said: 'I started to isolate myself, because I hated what I was doing. I hated that I couldn't stop.' Miss Saldivar said she looked at porn around age 12 or 13 but was too young to understand its addictive qualities. She now works with the organisation Fight The New Drug which addresses porn addiction in teenagers.

She told ABC: 'All it takes is for someone to be vocal about a situation and that person who knows they're struggling and see it and say ''I am addicted, this is an addiction.'''

Only 3 per cent of pornographic websites require proof-of-age before granting access to sexually explicit material, and two-thirds do not even include any adult-content warnings.

Under-18s can also often be mistakenly exposed to adult sex sites as email spam.

Mr Mittiga warned that children were ten times more likely to develop an addiction than adults and that getting hooked could potentially escalate into criminality.

Some of his young patients had stolen credit cards to fuel their addiction and racked up bills of more than $9,000 on pornography sites and sex lines.

Hooked: Boys were more at risk to online porn addiction than girls

Research from the University of New Hampshire showed that some children in the U.S. were trapped in the cycle of viewing online pornography from the age of eight, according to ABC's Nightline .

Pornography has not been named as a listed addiction by the American Psychological Association but there have been moves to curb a growing problem .



The New Hampshire study of 500 students revealed worrying trends. Researchers were in particular concerned about the exposure of young people to deviant sexual behavior online.



In boys, repeated viewing of violent sexual imagery threatened to link between pornography and sexual aggression.



More than two-thirds of both boys and girls who viewed porn under the age of 18 described feeling shock or surprise (65 per cent of boys and 78 per cent of girls).



Half of boys and about one-third of girls admitted they had felt guilt or shame after what they had seen online.



The university also found that three-quarters of teenager's unwanted exposure to pornography happened on their home computer with schools more likely to have more stringent blocks.



Nathan Haug and Breanne Saldivar, who spoke to ABC about their teenage pornography addictions, now work with organisation Fight The New Drug - which hopes to tackle the issue head on.

One click away: The prevalence of smartphones, tablets and laptops among young people has seen a surge in those viewing pornography online

The group explains to young people that there is nothing wrong with finding images of sex a turn-on. However it educates teenagers that porn causes surges of chemicals dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and epinephrine in the brain - leading to addiction.



British prime minister David Cameron has intervened to insist a default block on porn in the UK, deactivated only when users make an active choice to have it switched off, is put back on the table.