Porn and sex, two things that were for the longest time considered to be the primary reasons people go online, has somehow lost some of this luster. According to a recent survey of random Internet users, 70% of people who go online no longer does so with the intention of visiting some sort of porn related site. These days, apparently, everyone’s all about Facebook. Indeed, it would take something massive to derail people’s need to look for porn, and now, the powerhouse of a social networking site has started to succeed in the impossible task.
The survey was conducted by a group of researchers known as the “Internet Watchdogs”, a group dedicated to observing and recording trends and activities of anything online. Its founder, Ian Alphonse Brown, is not particularly surprised by the result of the survey. What amazes him more is the immeasurably progressive popularity of Facebook.
“Even Myspace took a few years to be really in full swing” said Brown as he studied the results. “But then again, Myspace never offered what Facebook offered since its inception, a reason to visit the site. Other social networking sites just center on building contacts and exchanging messages. Facebook, with its rampant use of applications, entice users to log on to the site even if there are no updates with their contacts.”
Porn and other similarly themed sites have not actually suffered a decline in patronage. There just has been a dramatic increase in users and visitors of other sites. Facebook has managed to capture an audience that ranges from the really young to the much older variety. The site has conquered all demographics, while porn sites are still being visited by the same people. While the number of visitors of porn sites are still quite remarkable, the level of growth, however, tends to be slow.
“That’s the thing with porn sites. A lot of people can stumble into porn sites or occasionally visit the sites, but the number of loyal visitors and members of porn sites growing slowly. Even when you check the search engines, porn sites are still hitting good numbers, but it’s just not that high anymore.”
If the trend continues, is this a sign of things to come? Is this the beginning of the end for the online porn industry? Brown answers. “Hell, no! Porn is actually just as popular and as strong as it used to be as an industry. It just so happened that one social networking site increased popularity. Those are two different things. Just because people are on Facebook does not mean they’re not going to check out porn afterwards. Also, the whole Facebook thing is just a fad. Someone will come up with a better site one day, and Facebook will be forgotten. All the while, porn will still be porn.”
