What is the actual volume of pornography on the Internet?
Opponents of free access to pornography and activists of various religious groups call the Internet a breeding ground for evil. In their opinion, the World Wide Web is simply awash in pornography, and this is considered very dangerous for the moral state of society. These people decided to scrupulously calculate the amount of pornographic content contained on the Internet.
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What are these calculations for?
But how do they know how much pornography is actually on the Internet? From a common sense perspective, not from a religious standpoint, this understanding is necessary for one purpose: to understand how much pornography is actually on the Internet. That is, in order to prevent children and the mentally impaired from viewing inappropriate content.
However, when it comes to adults, these data are only an interesting reflection of global trends. Unlike supporters of various religious schools, representatives of secular society do not consider pornography dangerous. There is no reason to restrict network sharing, at least if the person is over 18 years of age and of sound mind and memory.
How widespread is pornography: conservative research
First, let”s look at research on those who see pornography as a threat to morality and ethics. Activists have conducted extensive research on this issue. And this is what they found:
- By 2015, the total number of search queries worldwide exceeded 2 billion.
- About 20% of all these requests were related to pornography.
- Unfortunately, up to 90% of boys and 60% of girls under 18 years of age encounter pornographic content.
- Up to 56% of divorces are associated with a manic passion for pornography by one of the spouses (as a rule, we are talking about men).
- Partners who are faithful to their husbands and wives are 2 times less likely to watch porn. Those who are prone to cheating do not neglect the opportunity to entertain themselves with another erotic video.
Similar statistics were obtained by the Internet Safey-101 agency. Their research shows that:
- Porn sites attract more visitors every day than sites like Amazon, Netflix and Twitter combined.
- About 30% of all videos on the Internet are pornography.
- 88% of such videos contain scenes of violence against women.
- Between 2005 and 2013, searches for “teen porn” tripled.
Read also: Does watching porn affect potency? What is the opinion of scientists?
Opponents of pornography claim that men who are hooked on XXX-rated videos from a young age are at risk of impotence. They are mistaken.
This is a disappointing statistic for anti-pornography activists. However, there are other studies. They show slightly more modest figures.
Another scientific research
A similar study was conducted by scientists Ogi Ogus and Sayem Gadam. They analyzed billions of search queries. Of the million most popular sex sites, only 42, 337 resources were found to be related. And this is approximately 4%.
As for pornographic films, according to these scientists, their number ranges from 13 to 15% of all content. Ogas and Gaddam believe that overall, pornography makes up only less than 10% of the global network.
Let”s penetrate the darknet! We find something interesting there.
Reasons for the differences
What are the reasons for the differences in the data obtained? Ogus and Gaddam believe the problem is that conservative research dates back to the early days of the Web. They were carried out between 1997 and 1999. At that time, the majority of Internet users worldwide were predominantly young adult men.
It”s no surprise that in 1999, 40% of search engine queries included the keyword “pornography.” However, as Internet demographics began to expand to include other segments of the population, the proportion of pornography in search engine queries has dropped significantly.
American scientists: the danger of the Internet is exaggerated
Of course, as always, minors must be protected from exposure to explicit content. But as far as adult men and women are concerned, pornography poses no danger. And, as always, the role of global networks in this regard turned out to be overestimated.
The long-term study, conducted by Indiana University, included 14, 193 men aged 18 years and older. Scientists have found that the ubiquity of online pornography generally has little impact on the consumption of such content.
Over the course of several years, participants were asked the same question: “Have you seen pornography in the past year?” It was found that in the period 1987-1997, 32% of men viewed pornographic magazines in the decade before the advent of the Internet. In the period 1998-2010. this figure has not actually changed. It reached 34%, an increase of only 2%.
As they say, the devil is not as bad as he is made out to be. And those who want to protect young people from pornography can make do with standard blockers. Therefore, the total amount of pornography on the Internet is unlikely to bother them.
