This is not even the statistic on porn we are talking about…it’s coming later.
Often statistics can become white noise to us.
Our modern society is chocked full of data, facts and graph points.
In this reality, what was meant to highlight a specific point via a statistic, instead becomes easy to ignore.
One rose is easily obscured in a bed of roses.
However, when that same rose is placed into a bed of white daisies, the rose grabs our attention due to the contrast it provides.
Okay, why are we talking about flowers?
Fair enough…we’re not.
But we thought it might be nice to apply this flower lesson to a couple of societal trends.
Let’s take a look at statistics on porn use.
However, instead of merely throwing out more statistics in our world of numbers, we wanted to take a look at them in light of a less destructive leisure activity…
Reading.
By providing a mashup of these two activities, the pervasive issue of porn use stands out all the more. Let me show you what I mean:
It is more likely for an average male growing up in the United States to have viewed porn than to have read 1 book.
Recently, the rapper turned entrepreneur, Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) has been in the news for too many outlandish things to list. However, he noted on a just-released podcast that he has never read a book. As it turns out, this might be one case of him falling in line with more people than you would imagine. Within the United States, 17% of people say they have never read a book.
Contrast that with this… 93.2% of boys have seen porn by the time they turn 18 and you get the depressing reality noted above.
Here’s a bit more on reading vs. porn use to highlight the real societal issues we are headed toward.
Book reading has many positive health effects.
Reading is proven to have positive health effects including living longer as well as numerous cognitive benefits.
Porn use has negative health effects.
Male porn users have a higher rate of ED than non-porn users.
The dopamine effect of porn use and porn addiction has been documented to result in numerous negative health effects physically, psychologically and relationally.
Book reading is going down.
In 1999, the average person read 18.5 book titles a year, but in 2021 the number of titles read plunged to 12.6 annually. A whopping decline of around six fewer books a year for the average person.
Porn use is on the rise.
At Freedom Fight, we are not focused on getting you to read more, but we are focused on helping those struggling with porn use and addiction to find a path toward freedom and growth in Christ.
Break these statistics!!
Read this book by Ted Shimer
Do you have an addiction to porn?
Take the Sexual Addiction Screening Test
Resources Used in this Post:
Health Canal – State of Men’s Health 2022
Average Time Spent Reading Per Capita in the United States 2018-2021, by age group
Katie Couric – How Many Books Does the Average American Read Per Year?
