On the last Monday of January, students from seventh to 12th grades joined their parents at Manhattan High School to watch a presentation about the dangers of online pornography.

According to the presentation sponsored by local community group Relate 360, the Internet can corrupt a child from the start of adolescence, especially with advertisements and other suggestive content. To inform both adults and children better about that topic, a speaker was invited to present to both parents and students the proper usages for the Internet.

“[It was] advice on how to avoid, I guess, Internet porn,” sophomore Brogan Holdren said.

Including students, many school officials, such as senior principal Angie Messer, attended the presentation as well to be better informed on how to help students.

“There’s a group … called ‘Fight the New Drug,’ and their presentation was about the addiction that people could get from viewing pornography, pornographic images or pornographic texts, and the things you can do to help them combat that,” Messer said.

Around 100 students and parents showed up for the Pornography: What Every Family Needs to Know presentation.

“They have a site that they share with people to help individuals work through an addiction, any type of addiction, and in my role as an assistant principal I think that having the tools to give someone if they were addicted to anything [is important],” Messer said. “It was good information that they shared about where, how people are gaining access to this type of media, and the ages at which people are accidentally getting exposed to it.”

For more information, visit http://fightthenewdrug.org/