People Are Watching More Porn amid Coronavirus Outbreak, According to Pornhub
Many Americans are turning to Pornhub as stores, restaurants and offices shutter around the United States to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The X-rated website released data on Wednesday that analyzed the viewing trends of its users over the last few weeks, just as much of the country was asked to practice social distancing in the face of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Compared to an average day, traffic on Pornhub was up 6.4 percent in the United States — the website’s largest market — on Tuesday. For comparison, three weeks prior, on Feb. 24, traffic was down by nearly 1 percent.
“Isolation efforts began later in North America, but the following charts show that more visitors from the United States and Canada were staying at home and logging into Pornhub,” the company wrote on its website. “Traffic from the United States was up 6.4 percent on March 17th, and 7.2 percent in Canada.”
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Late-night hourly traffic to the website also saw a huge increase compared to an average day.
“North America began isolating the public later than Europe, but we can see in the following chart that many visitors from the United States quickly adjusted to their new at-home life by March 17th,” the company said.
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“Traffic was a massive 40.3 percent above average at 3 a.m., before dropping -11.9 percent at 7 a.m. That was followed by a 26.8 percent increase mid-afternoon,” they added.
Pornhub said while the usual peak traffic hour of 11 p.m. was down by 11 percent, the website saw an overall increase of 6.4 percent on March 17.
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The company noted there has been an uptick in searches containing “coronavirus” on the website as well, with people living in Washington, D.C. the most likely to search the term. Conversely, Americans living in North Dakota are the least likely to search for “coronavirus” on Pornhub than anywhere else in the country.
“In fact, D.C. visitors are proportionately 33 percent more likely to search. Visitors from New York are 24 percent more likely to search, 22 percent in Washington state and 18 percent more in West Virginia,” they said. “Folks from North Dakota are the least likely to search by -43 percent when compared to the rest of the country.”
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 233,000 people have been sickened by coronavirus worldwide, according to The New York Times. The United States has seen 10,822 cases and 172 deaths so far.
As information about the coronavirus pandemic rapidly changes, PEOPLE is committed to providing the most recent data in our coverage. Some of the information in this story may have changed after publication. For the latest on COVID-19, readers are encouraged to use online resources from CDC, WHO, and local public health departments and visit our coronavirus hub.
