Social Networking Dethrones Porn as Top Use of Internet

Reuters is reporting that social networking sites are officially the top attraction on the Internet, dethroning pornography and highlighting a major change in how people communicate, according to one researcher.

Bill Tancer, the general manager of global research at analytics firm Hitwise, said in the article that analyzing web searches did not just reflect what was happening online but gave a wider picture of society and people’s behavior.

“There are some patterns to our Internet use that we tend to repeat very specifically and predictably, from diet searches, to prom dresses, to what we do around the holidays,” said Tancer, whose new book, “Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters,” was released a few weeks ago.

Tancer said in the article that porn surfing has dropped to about 10 percent of searches from 20 percent ten years ago. “As social networking traffic has increased, visits to porn sites have decreased,” said Tancer, who also indicated that the 18-24 year old age group particularly was searching less for porn.

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