Are British teens addicted to online porn?

By Davey Winder
Friday, 13 February 2009 02:08

Market

British teenagers have been spilling the beans regarding just exactly what they get up to online, and the details might just surprise you.

We already know that teens just love posting naked pics online so I guess it should come as no surprise to learn they also like looking at naked images of others.

The survey by parental-control software outfit Cyber Sentinel concentrated on the online habits of teenagers in the UK. It turns out that the average British teen spends some 31 hours on the web each week.

Of this, three and a half hours are spent on Instant Messaging while another hour and 35 minutes can be frittered away researching diets and one hour and eight minutes on plastic surgery sites.

Then there was three hours and 10 minutes doing homework study and two hours and two minutes browsing YouTube video clips.

Not forgetting the hour and 40 minutes spent downloading music and the hour and 22 minutes on health websites getting information about the kind of things that teenagers do, such as puberty, sexual health and general illness.

Throw in an hour and 15 minutes on dating websites, plus another hour and 30 minutes buying and selling at online auction sites. Oh, and then an hour and 55 minutes within virtual worlds.

Of course, social networking soaks up the most time with around nine hours spent on Facebook or Twitter, in chat rooms and posting to forums.

Yet somehow they still have the energy to find another one hour and 40 minutes every week to check out the latest in online porn. That's 87 hours a year, or put another way nowhere near as much as I would have expected.

Still, it might well explain why the most common place for teens to do their browsing is in the bedroom. But addicted to porn? Nah, doesn't sound like it to me.