Just more than two decades into the new millennium, many behavioral changes have arisen along with the popularity of the internet.
Just in 2013, the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized that “Internet Gaming” can lead to a prospective behavioral addiction.
While there is still much to be covered about internet pornography, many people already identify themselves as “porn addicts” due to the frequency and degree of involvement in this type of activity.
How Many People are Addicted to Porn in 2024?
For the sake of this discussion, the question will be answered using a limited set of parameters to define “addiction” namely those showing signs of problematic behavioral control, experiencing an obvious impairment from their normal activities, and risky usage of these materials, among others.
It is estimated that 5% to 8% of the world’s adult population is affected by porn addiction.
This is in the context of adult content consumption of between 11 hours to 12 hours in a week.
In the United States where pornography is highly unregulated, 200,000 adults are considered “porn addicts” among the country’s 40 million porn consumers.
Porn Addiction From One Country to Another
Results from a review published by the Journal of Clinical Medicine titled “Online Porn Addiction: What We Know and What We Don’t–A Systematic Review” shows that signs of porn addiction are recognized in many countries worldwide.
Some have self-diagnosed themselves as “porn addicts” due to the lack of a better term for what they feel.
In Sweden, 7.6% of the participants in a study participated by nearly 2,000 samples reported experiencing some kind of an “internet sexual problem.” 4.5% of these reported feeling addicted to the internet in search of love and for sexual purposes.
In the Australian context which gathered a larger participant size of 20,000, 4.4% of men self-diagnosed themselves as addicted to porn, while 1.2% of women agreed with the same observation.
Top 10 Countries with the Highest Pornhub Traffic in 2021
Below is the list of countries that recorded the highest number of website traffic on Pornhub in 2021, with each country’s three most popular searches.
- United States – hentai, lesbian, MILF
- United Kingdom – lesbian, MILF, hentai
- Japan – Japanese, amateur, hentai
- France – Francaise, hentai, French
- Italy – Italiano, dialoghi italiano, MILF
- Mexico – hentai, lesbianas, MILF
- Canada – hentai, lesbian, MILF
- Germany – German, Deutsch, MILF
- Philippines – Pinay, hentai, Japanese
- Brazil – hentai, Brasil, lesbian
Countries Spending the Most Time Watching Porn in 2021
In 2021, popular adult social media site Pornhub revealed the list of countries that spend the most amount of time watching porn.
Here are the top five countries that made the list and the number of minutes spent by each.
- The Philippines – topped the list with an average time spent of 11 minutes 31 seconds per session
- Japan – another Asian country comes second with an average time spent of 10 minutes 3 seconds per session
- France – is the first among European countries to make the list with an average time spent of 10 minutes 2 seconds per session
- The Netherlands – is the second European country and fourth place overall. It recorded an average time spent of just close to 10 minutes per session
- Ukraine – is the third country in Europe to make the list, with an average time spent of 9 minutes 53 seconds
Recognizing Signs of Porn Addiction
While there is still a wide span of gray area on the consideration of excessive porn exposure and consumption as “addiction,” the World Health Organization has already considered compulsive sexual behavior as a mental health disorder since 2018.
Today, the term “compulsion”, meaning the repetition of negative behavior but with a significantly reduced anxiety, is used to direct a fine line versus its darker counterpart “addiction” which entails a hardline lack of control over one’s behavior.
As per the WebMD and Medical News Today websites, here are the common signs of “porn addiction” even with the absence of acceptance of the term in the medical context.
- Pornography becomes a centrifugal force in your life–it becomes difficult to carry out daily tasks you normally do before you came to this point
- Disengagement on other activities other than watching porn. Sexually-explicit content consumes the majority of your brain activity
- Real-world sex life becomes less satisfying. As your focus remains constantly on fantasy, it becomes more and more difficult to find sexual satisfaction with a partner. This potentially leads to permanent damage to your personal relationship due to unfulfilled sexual desires
- You watch online pornography even in unlikely places, particularly in the workplace. This leads to the neglect of professional responsibilities and a lack of focus on work-related tasks
Treatments to Porn Addiction
While there is no one-size-fits-all cure to this kind of compulsive behavior, there are many different ways to treat excessive usage of porn.
1. Lifestyle Change
Porn has become widely popular due to the ease of access that came along with the exponential growth of the internet.
This can also be the solution in itself–make porn access difficult.
Delete all the porn site bookmarks on your phone and put access restrictions, if you must.
Discard all the possible triggers of your addiction, like hard copies of sexually-explicit content, and engage more in physical activities
3. Professional Help
If a lifestyle change could not suffice, one can already seek professional help.
There are different types of psychotherapies you can try which will help you understand your condition better which could possibly lead to easier management
4. Medication
If your porn addiction comes with a coexisting condition, a professional may opt to put you under medication to help control the imbalances of the chemicals in the brain which trigger obsessive thoughts and actions
Conclusion
There is still a lot of groundwork to do to increase the discussion and study available for porn addiction.
At the present moment, even the acceptance of the term “addiction” related to this kind of activity remains elusive.
On the other hand, there are millions of people worldwide suffering from this kind of dilemma.
This leads to the impairment of their daily activities and tarnishing of their personal and professional lives.
Remember, porn addiction can be calmed, through the right lifestyle changes and asking for professional help.
