On "Adult" internet videos...

I use to shrug off the idea that American’s had a porn problem.  But I am a data driven person.  And today I saw some data that totally changed my mind.  American has a porn problem.   

Let me elaborate.

I was looking data today at work from a company that compiles data on who looks at what websites.

I am new to the data, so I was clicking through report trends by industry.  I saw I could look at a report on “XXX Adult” websites.  So I did a basic report on the number of people that look at “XXX Adult” websites. 

Ahem.

So.

There are about 235 million US adults that used the internet in February 2013.

Of those 235 million – 91.8 million (give or take) – or about 40% of the US looked at an XXX adult site.

That means four in ten US adults looked at porn in February.

Next question, how much porn?

Of the 91.8 million folks that looked at porn, they spent roughly 86,000,000 minutes looking at porn in February.

How much time is that really? (Bri of Leah or Jamieson – check my math if you are reading this - I was in go mode when I wrote this)

86,000,000 minutes is about 1,433,333 hours (86,000,000/60)

86,000,000 minutes is about 59,722 days. (1,433,333/24)

86,000,000 minutes is about 163 years. (59,722/365)

So – in one month – the population spends the equivalent of 163 years looking at porn.

How much is that in terms of man power?

Well, the French Revolution was 10 years .  So – the time the US spends on porn is the equivalent of 16 French Revolutions.

And the Industrial Revolution was between about 1760 and 1830 – so about 70 years.  So the time the US spends on porn is the equivalent of about 2 ¼ Industrial Revolutions.

That is a lot of friggin time.

This doesn't even include porn DVDs.

I didn’t even both to look at Facebook, but I am sure that is even more of a time spend. 

I understand averages, and that time spent will vary.

As a sociologist, I understand that porn does have societal benefits.  It can reduce certain sexual crimes... and it can meet sexual desires that are not met in relationships thereby preventing divorce, etc etc etc.  I was in gender/sex studies - I am not oblivious to rhetoric on both sides.

However, you cannot deny that 163 years is a lot of time.  And you cannot deny that people can likely be doing better things with their time.

All of this begs the question, which we must ask… what else could we have been doing with that time?

Talking to our families?

Building something?

Creating something?

Helping someone?..........

Think about it.