IN A SURPRISE move set to rock the Internet’s world, social notworking has apparently knocked pornography off its sticky throne, in what people search for most online.

According to 'data geek', Bill Tancer, top boffin at Internet tracking company Hitwise, people are no longer coming to the net in search of adult stimulation.

In fact, searches for porn have shriveled to only 10 per cent, going down from 20 per cent ten years ago. In other words, porn has been well and truly shafted. Or, the Internet porn industry is well and truly screwed. Or… [enough! – Ed]

Social not-working, on the other hand, has seen a real spurt of growth and is becoming increasingly hot. "As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased," Tancer noted, indicating a change in position by the 18-24 year old cyber market. "Young users spend so much time on social networks that they don't have time to look at adult sites", he added.

Tancer’s hands-on research meant he had to sift his way through information from over 10 million web users. His findings are now being compiled into a book called Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters.

Aside from the revelation that we are social, rather than sexual animals when it comes to our cyber pastimes, Tancer also discovered from his data delving that elbows, belly button lint and ceiling fans all freaked people out almost as much as social intimacy and rejection. µ

L’Inq
Reuters