Monday, September 22, 2008

Social Networking Bigger Than Porn?

Over the weekend I came across an eye-catching headline: 
The article refers to recent research of Internet search activity that shows social networking eclipsing porn as the #1 thing people are looking for. It used to be that porn accounted for 20% of all activity online, but now this study suggests that it has fallen to 10%, and instead people are now searching for ways to connect with other people.

That lends itself to some heart-warming conclusions about people gravitating towards true friendship and away from empty connections, but there are likely a few things going on here. First, as the article points out, the decline in porn activity is deceptive: a drop from 20% a decade ago to 10% today may actually represent an increase in real numbers, given the overall growth of Internet usage in that period. Porn is well-known as an early adopter phenomenon; if you like porn, and you find out about a new, efficient delivery device, there's a good chance you'll buy a computer and a modem and check it out. For that reason, porn hounds were probably disproportionately represented on the early Internet.

Second, the author's  conclusion that young people today are too busy socializing to consume porn is probably a false dichotomy. Young people today grew up interacting with their friends via electronic media; ten years ago my niece was already busy after school using instant messaging to chat with her real-world friends. Now, as they enter their  twenties, they're carrying the same expectations onto the web. It's not that they're coming online and looking for something to do, then choosing between porn or social networking. Rather they're coming online with a predetermined idea of what to do, and social networking just happens to be that activity. 

Still, it's nice to see something taking precedence over porn in the online sphere. That's been the dirty little secret of the online marketplace for more than a decade now. It's high time that porn take its rightful place along the Internet's margins.