Abstract
Despite the considerable amount of attention presently devoted to the high accessibility of online pornography, very little formal analyses have been carried out to show how the advent and proliferation of Internet technology has changed the prevalence of pornography use in populations. We conducted a preliminary analysis based on objective website traffic data, representing the changes in the number of (1) Internet users generally and (2) online pornography users specifically, between 2004 and 2016 in Poland. We observed a clear increase in the estimated number of people using online pornography in the analyzed period. The estimated number of general population members viewing pornography on the Internet increased over three times (310%) between October 2004 and October 2016–starting from an estimated 2.76 million in the first period to 8.54 million in the last. At the same time, we did not observe a clear increase in the percentage of Internet users who viewed online pornography in the same time period. Additionally, pornography viewership on the Internet was almost 2 times more prevalent among male (47%) than female Internet users (27%), and most popular in the 18–27 age group. Since our analysis is based on objective data, it does not share the limitations inherent in self-reports. However, our approach also has several important limitations (e.g., the analysis does not include online activity generated on mobile devices and under a private browsing mode); thus, the results should be interpreted with caution.
Highlights
Instantaneous and increasingly easier access to pornography, attributed by many to the development of high-speed, broadband Internet technology, has attracted the attention of the scientific community (e.g., Cooper et al, 1999; Owens et al, 2012), non-governmental organizations, social communities that aim to prevent Internet and pornography addiction (e.g., NoFap movement, Sproten, 2016), and even government representatives and policy makers
These signs of concern can be provoked by reasons other than the scientific, they may be at least partly related to a growing amount of research, showing that extensive online pornography use can have a range of negative consequences for psychological health, intimate relationships, social connections and brain function (Gola & Draps, 2018; Gola et al, 2016, 2017; Klucken et al, 2016; 1 3 Vol.:(0123456789)
A broad conclusion that can be drawn from this data is that both the number of online pornography viewers and the number of Internet users generally appeared to increase over consecutive time windows
Summary
Instantaneous and increasingly easier access to pornography, attributed by many to the development of high-speed, broadband Internet technology, has attracted the attention of the scientific community (e.g., Cooper et al, 1999; Owens et al, 2012), non-governmental organizations, social communities that aim to prevent Internet and pornography addiction (e.g., NoFap movement, Sproten, 2016), and even government representatives and policy makers. Online pornography was recognized with a public health crisis status in multiple US states (e.g., Dines, 2016), and initiatives for preventing children’s access to online pornography were established, e.g., in the UK (BBC, 2013) and in Poland (STS, 2017) These signs of concern can be provoked by reasons other than the scientific, they may be at least partly related to a growing amount of research, showing that extensive online pornography use can have a range of negative consequences for psychological health, intimate relationships, social connections and brain function Despite the considerable attention given to the potential effects of viewing pornography, there is still almost a complete lack of formal analyses of changes in the proliferation of online pornography over the years.
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