Free Internet porn is ruining marriage in United States?! A new study claims that the relationship between free Internet pornography and the pronounced decline in young adult males who are married goes beyond just a correlation.The Washington Post reports that researchers in Germany analyzed data from the General Social Survey (GSS), a nationally representative survey, and focused on how 18-to-35-year-old men used the Internet online between 2000 and 2004 (because if there’s one thing that hasn’t changed since 2004, it’s the Internet and how we use it). Researchers analyzied 1,500 participants’ hours spent on the Internet each week and their use of porn sites as well as sports, news or religious websites. The data was adjusted for age, income, education, religiosity and employment, all of which typically correlate with marriage.What they found was that higher Internet usage in general was associated with lower marriage rates, but visiting porn sites in particular showed a correlation for a lower rate of marriage. The researchers say its possible the correlation is tied to the relationship between marriage and sexual gratification, meaning married couples don’t “need” porn. If pornography is a “milder form of premarital sex,” the Post explained, then at a young age men don’t need marriage to serve that function.Marriage is on the decline in general. According to PewResearch, 20% of Americans age 25 or older have never been married and the median first age for marriage is 27 for women and 29 for men. (That’s up from 20 for women and 23 for men in 1960.) There’s a lot bigger reasons why people aren’t marrying than the proliferation of porn — say, shifting education and career norms — although changing sexual norms are certainly a factor. Tell us what you think in the comments.
Researchers Blame Porn for Lower Marriage Rates
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