Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, an Internet tracking company, said one of the major shifts in Internet use in the past decade had been the fall off in interest in pornography or adult entertainment sites.
He said surfing for porn had dropped to about 10 percent of searches from 20 percent a decade ago, and the hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites.
"As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased," said Tancer, indicated that the 18-24 year old age group particularly was searching less for porn.
So, we're less interested in porn, but are we just more interested in voyeurism? Also, I'd like to hear exactly where they draw the line between "porn" and "social networking," because some social networks can be extremely social, if you know what I'm sayin'.
I don't mean to sound pessimistic about social networking. Facebook has been great for me--I'm proud to say that I actually know most of the people who are my Facebook friends, and it really helps me do a better job of keeping in touch with them.
However, I also have a MySpace page, and I get a steady stream of friend requests from young women who really enjoy taking naked pictures of themselves and their hot friends and sharing them with, oh, just everybody. Who knew that naked self-portraiture was so popular before the internet, I ask you?
So, while I'd like to think that people are shedding their lust for porn to pursue deeper, more meaningful relationships with their friends, I'm going to guess that the jury's still out on that one.
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