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Abstract

Background: Pornography has become widely accessible due to the popularization of smartphones and internet connectivity. Consuming pornography has multiple effects on an individual and on society. Our research question was if pornography-seeking behavior has any correlation with education and financial status in Indian states.

Objective: To find the online pornography-seeking behavior of Indian internet users according to states and find its correlation with the literacy level and per capita net state domestic product (NSDP).

Methods: Trends of internet search about pornography-related keywords (namely, porn, XXX, Xvideos, and sex) were obtained from a public domain https://trends.google.com/trends. State-wise relative search volumes were compared with the literacy rate and NSDP of the state. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated with the help of GraphPad Prism 6.01 (GraphPad Software, Inc., California, USA). A P < .05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: Northeastern states showed a higher volume of overall online pornography searches. There was no significant correlation between the literacy rate and relative search volumes of pornography-related keywords. Overall pornography-related search volume showed a significant negative (r = –0.49, P = .003) correlation with NSDP.

Conclusion: Online pornography seeking behaviors in Indian states are not related to the literacy rate of the state. A higher volume of searches is from states with lower NSDP. The underlying factors for this finding should be explored in a future study.

Keywords

Erotica smartphone literacy internet information seeking behavior pornography

Introduction

Pornography, perhaps the most accessible forbidden material, has been with us from historical time. Over the time, only the medium of pornography has been changed from sculptures, photograph, books, magazine, and video tapes to today’s e-book, digital images, and videos.¹ Internet is an ocean of potentially rewarding explicit content, and it has now become easily accessible and affordable even in developing countries. With ever-increasing demand from the users, pornography has become a stable multibillion-dollar industry.^{2, 3}

Smartphones give the user a private space and anonymity. Hence, a combination of smartphone and the internet is the most preferred way of pornography acquisition nowadays.^{4, 5} The internet search trend reflects the information-seeking behavior of the internet users.⁶ For a sensitive issue like pornography, online anonymized data collection is a better choice than self-report information-seeking behavior. A face-to-face interview or questionnaire-based study may have several bias.^{7, 8} “Google trends” provides trends of internet search volume in terms of “relative search volume (RSV)” over the time and according to different geographical locations on their website (https://trends.google.com/trends).

It has been found that higher educational attainment is positively associated with higher usage of pornography in Dutch adolescents.⁹ Luder et al also found similar picture in Swiss adolescents.¹⁰ Study by Lim showed that higher educated young Australians use pornography at a higher rate.¹¹ In contrast, Peter et al reported no relationship of education and pornography use in Dutch adolescents.¹² Study by Yang found that people with lower social status, lower income, and higher working hours has lesser opportunity for sexual intercourse and thus uses pornography at higher rate in the USA.¹³

Literature about pornography-seeking behavior and its association with education and income has not been explored in India. With this background, our research question was if there is any correlation of online pornography-seeking behavior with the literacy rate and the net state domestic product (NSDP) in Indian states.

Methods

Ethics

This study does not involve any human research participants. The data used for analysis were obtained from a public domain which does not restrict a user to analyze their data for any research purpose. Hence, formal ethical clearance was not obtained from the institute for this study.

Settings

Data relating to the internet search trend were collected from the website https://trends.google.com/trends. Literacy rate and NSDP data were collected from Indian governmental websites.^{14, 15} For data collection, we used a personal computer (ASUS VivoBook Max X541N) with internet connection. The data collection was done on 2019, 27 September, between 5 pm and 8 pm.

Process of Data Collection

Pornography-related keywords (viz., porn, XXX, Xvideos, and sex) were selected after reviewing the article by Markey et al.⁷ These keywords were searched on the Google trends website first individually, then in combination for last 5-year period in India. State-wise RSV data were downloaded from the website for further analysis.

Educational level and per capita NSDP according to different Indian states were collected from a public domain managed by the Government of India.^{14, 15}

Data Handling and Statistical Analysis

Collected data were compiled into the spreadsheet software, Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft, USA). The state-wise data were arranged alphabetically to get data of a single state across a row. During this stage, Google trends data of “Lakshadweep” was found to be missing. Hence it was removed from the list. For matching the state-wise RSV of pornography-related keywords, the literacy rate and NSDP of Lakshadweep were removed. Furthermore, the NSDP of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu were not obtainable. Hence, during analysis of NSDP and RSV, those 2 states were removed from the RSV list.

For finding the overall pornography-seeking behavior, a mean of RSV of 4 keywords were used.

Pearson correlation coefficient was used to find a correlation of RSV with the literacy rate (percentage) and log-NSDP in GraphPad Prism 6.01 (GraphPad Software, Inc., California, USA). Statistical analysis was presented with correlation coefficient (r), 95% confidence interval, and P value. A P value < .05 was considered statistically significant.

Results

State-wise RSV of the keywords are presented in Table 1. The top 5 states searching the word “porn” were Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, and Chandigarh. The top 5 states searching the word “XXX” were Manipur, Bihar, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal. The top 5 states searching the word “Xvideos” were Kerala, Telangana, Manipur, Assam, and Tamil Nadu. The top 5 states searching the word “Sex” were Manipur, Odisha, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Assam.

5-year relative trend for the keywords is presented in Figure 1a. The trend for the same set of the keywords worldwide is presented in Figure 1b. Indian online users search the word “sex” at a higher rate followed by “XXX”, “porn”, and “Xvideos”. Similarly, worldwide search for “sex” was higher than the other keywords. However, “porn” is more searched than “XXX” worldwide. The word “Xvideos” remain the least choice worldwide like in India. The RSV of “sex” and “XXX” were increased over time with a dip at the end of 2018. The trend for other 2 words remains invariably stable over the time. Overall state-wise pornography-related search volume is shown in a heat map in Figure 2.

Figure 1.

Source: Graph was obtained and captured from https://trends.google.com

Table 1.

Relative Search Volume (RSV) of Different Keywords on the Internet According to Indian States

Region	RSV of Porn	Region	RSV of XXX	Region	RSV of Xvideos	Region	RSV for Sex
Mizoram	100	Manipur	100	Kerala	100	Manipur	100
Manipur	88	Bihar	87	Telangana	73	Odisha	83
Nagaland	86	Assam	83	Manipur	70	Telangana	83
Arunachal Pradesh	61	Madhya Pradesh	67	Assam	66	Tamil Nadu	81
Chandigarh	59	West Bengal	66	Tamil Nadu	66	Assam	80
Assam	58	Gujarat	63	Mizoram	64	Puducherry	77
Himachal Pradesh	56	Chandigarh	61	Puducherry	64	Karnataka	69
Jammu & Kashmir	56	Uttar Pradesh	59	Karnataka	61	Andhra Pradesh	68
Gujarat	53	Himachal Pradesh	58	Chandigarh	58	Mizoram	67
West Bengal	53	Jammu & Kashmir	56	Andhra Pradesh	56	Tripura	60
Meghalaya	50	Odisha	56	Jammu & Kashmir	56	Andaman and Nicobar Islands	58
Uttar Pradesh	49	Arunachal Pradesh	53	Odisha	49	Himachal Pradesh	58
Bihar	48	Andaman and Nicobar Islands	52	West Bengal	49	Chandigarh	57
Madhya Pradesh	48	Jharkhand	50	Maharashtra	48	Jammu & Kashmir	55
Delhi	47	Rajasthan	49	Delhi	45	Bihar	53
Punjab	46	Delhi	47	Punjab	44	Gujarat	53
Rajasthan	44	Meghalaya	46	Gujarat	43	West Bengal	53
Tripura	42	Maharashtra	45	Tripura	42	Kerala	52
Uttarakhand	42	Dadra and Nagar Haveli	44	Andaman and Nicobar Islands	41	Nagaland	52
Andaman and Nicobar Islands	41	Tripura	44	Himachal Pradesh	41	Arunachal Pradesh	50
Jharkhand	41	Nagaland	43	Meghalaya	41	Madhya Pradesh	49
Maharashtra	41	Chhattisgarh	41	Nagaland	40	Maharashtra	49
Chhattisgarh	40	Punjab	41	Bihar	38	Rajasthan	47
Sikkim	40	Sikkim	40	Madhya Pradesh	38	Delhi	44
Haryana	38	Daman and Diu	37	Uttar Pradesh	38	Meghalaya	44
Odisha	38	Haryana	35	Rajasthan	35	Dadra and Nagar Haveli	43
Daman and Diu	31	Uttarakhand	35	Goa	34	Uttar Pradesh	43
Kerala	30	Karnataka	29	Sikkim	34	Chhattisgarh	41
Dadra and Nagar Haveli	29	Telangana	28	Uttarakhand	32	Jharkhand	41
Karnataka	27	Mizoram	26	Chhattisgarh	31	Punjab	40
Telangana	26	Kerala	24	Haryana	31	Daman and Diu	39
Goa	25	Tamil Nadu	22	Arunachal Pradesh	30	Sikkim	39
Andhra Pradesh	23	Andhra Pradesh	20	Jharkhand	30	Uttarakhand	34
Tamil Nadu	21	Puducherry	18	Daman and Diu	29	Haryana	32
Puducherry	19	Goa	15	Dadra and Nagar Haveli	25	Goa	27
No data for Lakshadweep

Figure 2.

Source: Heat map was generated and captured from www.danielpinero.com

Table 2.

Correlation of Education (%) and Relative Search Volume of Online Pornography-Seeking Behavior

Keywords	r	95% CI	P
Porn	0.07	–0.2686 to 0.3950	.69
XXX	–0.33	–0.5953 to 0.007337	.06
Xvideos	0.27	–0.07226 to 0.5516	.12
Sex	–0.04	–0.3688 to 0.2968	.82
Overall	–0.03	–0.3599 to 0.3062	.86

Notes. r, Pearson correlation coefficient; CI, confidence interval.

Table 3.

Correlation of Per Capita Gross State Domestic Product and Relative Search Volume of Online Pornography-Related Keywords

Keywords	r	95% CI	P
Porn	–0.39	–0.6435 to –0.04829	.03*
XXX	–0.64	–0.8064 to –0.3806	< .001*
Xvideos	0.07	–0.2782 to 0.4054	.69
Sex	–0.23	–0.5340 to 0.1196	.19
Overall	–0.49	–0.7149 to –0.1793	.003*

Notes. r, Pearson correlation coefficient; CI, confidence interval; *statistically significant P value.

Figure 3.

Notes. NSDP, net state domestic product; RSV: relative Search volume.

Discussions

Region-Wise Pornography-Seeking Behavior

In this study, we report Indian state-wise data on pornography-seeking behavior on the internet. It is found that overall pornography-related keywords are searched at the highest volume from the northeastern states. This information-seeking behavior may be due to lesser sex education in the region. Hence, governmental and nongovernmental organizations may think about strengthening formal sex education in the northeastern region of the country. Another reason is lower socioeconomic status of the states. However, if we take individual keywords, there are other states which top on the list of top-five states searching for the keywords (Table 1). Hence, the underlying factors except the socioeconomic status should be further explored.

Pornography-Seeking Behavior and Literacy

The relationship of the pornography-seeking behavior with literacy rate was neither quantitatively nor statistically significant (Table 2). This finding does not support the previous study conducted on adolescent and youth in the Netherland, Switzerland, and Australia. Majority of the previous study found a positive relation between these 2 variables.^9-11 There may be various reasons behind this noncorroborative finding. The finding of the previous study was based on survey on the population level. In the current study, we used online user data which is a part of population having access to the internet. Further, there may actually be a difference between the pornography usage and the pornography-seeking behavior. Simply, a pornography user may not seek information from the internet. On the other hand, an information seeker may not use pornography. In addition, we used the data as the literacy rate, not the level of literacy. Whether a graduate seeks more or less pornography than a high school pass out is a topic of future research in India.

Pornography-Seeking Behavior and Economy

The online pornography-seeking behavior was found to be negatively correlated with NSDP. This finding suggests that an increase in NSDP decreases the pornography-seeking behavior or vice-versa. This finding is corroborative with study by Yang from the USA. A higher socioeconomic status enables people to have access of various entertainment opportunities and sexual exposures.¹³ This may be the reason for less pornography-seeking behavior in states with higher NSDP. However, socioeconomic status at the individual level and its relation with pornography-seeking behavior remain a topic of future research.

Effect of Pornography Usage

Many teenagers and young adults use pornography as a resource for sex education, while others use it for sexual arousal.^{16, 17} Exposure to pornography increases the frequency of sexual encounters.¹⁸ In addition, excessive watching of pornographic content may influence the sexual life or even increases chances of relationship breakdown.^{19, 20} There is also reduction of grey matter volume with high exposure to pornographic content.²¹ In contrast, at the social level, a higher usage of pornography is associated with a reduced rate of rape.²² This statement may seem to be an oversimplification of the data of pornography usage and the rate of rape. Kutchinsky showed that pornography usage does not increase the rate of rape.²³ In support of the finding, Math et al from India found that pornography has no association with the rate of rape.²⁴ India has a strict law to prevent production, storage, and usage of the child pornography (ie, explicit content showing children).²⁵ However, adult pornography is not banned, but not even legalized.²⁶ Indian telecom operators have banned many pornography websites which may be the cause of a dip in the trend data near the end of 2018 (Figure 1a).²⁷ This also proves that a huge number of internet searches are for pornography. Despite the ban, the search volume does not show any decline. Hence, in India, pornography remains the accessible forbidden matter with unproven advantage or disadvantage.

Novelty of This Study

This study reports anonymized online pornography-seeking data at the national level and reports correlation data on the pornography-seeking behavior with state-level literacy and NSDP. There is no previous study on this topic from India. The data may be considered devoid of any bias from the level of data collector to the respondents which otherwise may present in survey-based data. However, the literacy and NSDP data itself may have some minor error as it actually comes from field-level survey.

Limitation of the Study

Only Google provides the search trends; hence, we could not analyze data from other websites (eg, Yahoo, Bing). However, Google search shares 92.96% on all platform and 95.86% of mobile global searches.²⁸ Only search result in English was considered. Though there are diverse languages in India, English is the popular search language and it is the major language (54.6%) on the internet and Hindi search comprised of only 0.1%.²⁹ There are some missing data relating to a few states at the level of Google trends website and governmental websites. Hence, those states were excluded from the analysis.

Conclusion

Overall, northeastern states of India showed higher volume of internet search for pornography. The literacy rate of states does not have any relation with online pornography-seeking behavior. States with lower NSDP search pornography at a higher rate than the states with higher NSDP. Exploration of the underlying reason of this finding should be a future research topic.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Shaikat Mondal

Himel Mondal

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Online Pornography Seeking Behavior and Its Relation to Literacy Rate and Financial Status of Indian States

Abstract

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Methods

Ethics

Settings

Process of Data Collection

Data Handling and Statistical Analysis

Results

Relative Search Volume (RSV) of Different Keywords on the Internet According to Indian States

Correlation of Education (%) and Relative Search Volume of Online Pornography-Seeking Behavior

Correlation of Per Capita Gross State Domestic Product and Relative Search Volume of Online Pornography-Related Keywords

Discussions

Region-Wise Pornography-Seeking Behavior

Pornography-Seeking Behavior and Literacy

Pornography-Seeking Behavior and Economy

Effect of Pornography Usage

Novelty of This Study

Limitation of the Study

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

References