Social Networking beats Porn

Porn has been dethroned by social networking as the #1 activity on the Web:

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.

"My theory is that young users spend so much time on social networks that they don't have time to look at adult sites."

I guess the urge to connect with other people is stronger than the urge to look at naughty pictures. The Internet: getting more and more like regular life all the time.

Other interesting tidbits from that article:

...an annual spike in searches for anti-depression drugs around Thanksgiving time in the United States.

Not surprising.