One in five people watch porn during work hours, study finds

The definition of NSFW

Ever wonder what your coworkers get up to all day? Well, the results of a recent online survey might have one pretty interesting explanation, and yes, it’s bound to give your HR rep a headache. 

Coworkers will often sheepishly admit to using their work laptop for extracurricular activities, such as a late-night Netflix binge, or perhaps to browse the latest sale items on The Iconic (in the name of research of course). 

But one thing you never hear someone confess to is spending a solid chunk of their workday downloading spicy content. However, according to one recent study, watching porn during office hours might be far more common than we think. 

The online study conducted by communications regulator Ofcom surveyed a selection of adults in the UK, diving into their online habits and search histories. Here are the most shocking spicy stats. 

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Our surprising porn habits 

The survey results paint a pretty colourful picture of the adult population’s porn preferences, revealing everything from what time of day people tend to search, to what sites gain the most traction. 

According to the data, the majority of online porn consumers in the UK visit sites throughout the morning and afternoon than late at night. In other words, that nine-to-five grind. 

All data featured in the report was gathered in May 2023, though if the projected trends indicated then have maintained their steady increase, we can safely conclude the porn habits of the adults surveyed would be just as consistent today.  

Working hard, or hardly working? The latest data suggests the latter. Image: iStock

When and where most people are watching

Throughout the surveyed period, despite more adult Internet users accessing porn sited during work days, the data revealed they were still more likely to spend time actually consuming the content between the hours of midnight to 8.59 PM. 

Overall, each user’s visit to a porn site during the night had an average time of 59 minutes, while their visits during the day averaged out to be slightly less, being 55 minutes. 

29 per cent of adults surveyed visited a service or site online to access pornographic content online, and of that group, 73 per cent were men. In terms of the UK population, those stats equate roughly to 10.1 million men and 3.7 million women consuming porn online.

How, when and where adults access their x-rated online content has been revealed. Image: Pexels

The most popular website amongst UK porn consumers? Spicy content conglomerate PornHub of course. The streaming service-turned-household name reached 18 per cent of adult internet users, according to the data. Chaturbate took second place reaching nine per cent, with XVideos rounding out third place with 8 per cent. 

Comparably, the data shows more adults in the UK visited porn sites in May 2023 than May 2022. In total, the survey revealed UK adults spend an average of three hours and 41 minutes online each day (whether that be spent on x-rated searches or scrolling through TikTok’s cat videos). 

With some users being found to spend almost an hour each day watching online pornographic content, there’s no denying its prevalence in our culture. 

Originally published as One in five people watch porn during work hours, study finds