This generation has been more affected by pornography than any other generation in history. I believe there are four major reasons for this. They are acceptability, accessibility, affordability, and anonymity.
- Pornography is more acceptable than ever before. In a study published in 2008 titled Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults, researchers found that “roughly two thirds (67%) of young men and one half (49%) of young women agree that viewing pornography is acceptable, whereas nearly 9 out of 10 (87%) young men and nearly one third (31%) of young women reported using pornography.”
- Pornography is more accessible than ever before. It used to be that if a person wanted to look at pornography, they would have to go to an adult video show to rent it, or they would have to go buy a magazine, or they would have to go to a strip club. Today, anyone with a smartphone is just “one click away” or “one Google search away” from pornography. We carry access to porn in our pockets.
- Pornography is more affordable than ever before. In fact, porn is free. For the last six years, Pornhub—the largest free pornography website—has done an annual Year in Review. They report having 33.5 billion visits over the course of 2018. That equates to a daily average of 92 million visitors. To put that into perspective, that’s as if the combined populations of Canada, Poland, and Australia all visited one pornographic website every day! Something is searched on Pornhub 962 times per second. In 2018 alone, they uploaded 4.79 million new videos, creating over one million hours of new content. That’s 115 years worth of video in just 2018. And every minute, 63,992 new visitors arrive at Pornhub, 207,405 videos are watched, and 57,750 searches are performed. Every minute!
- Pornography is more anonymous than ever before. There is anonymity in watching pornography. No one has to know that you are watching it or that you have watched it. We have the ability to watch porn in the comfort of our homes, and then we can “clear history” when we’re done.
Each of these four A-words has helped pornography thrive in this generation.
Before we can understand how to respond to pornography, we need to understand why it affects this generation.
I recently spoke on this important issue. My hope is that this talk will help protect you and your family in a pornified world.