You would think by now, government workers (and employees everywhere) around the world would know better than to watch porn on the job.
Yet more than 24,000 attempts to access pornographic sites were made on the British Parliament estate from June to October last year, according to recently released data.
The number is 24,473 to be exact. If you break it down, that’s 160 times a day, or once every nine minutes.
But there is a bit of good news! Apparently, this is a significant drop in previous years. In comparison, the government’s filtering system blocked 113,208 attempts in 2016, down from 213,020 in 2015.
The question on our minds: how does anyone have the time for that at work?
Related: Investigation Reveals Nearly 100 Federal Employees Watch Massive Amounts Of Porn While At Work
Parliamentary authorities say the majority of these hits aren’t deliberate. The report shows ‘requests’ to access the websites, but not necessarily visits to them. In other words, every pop up that may have slipped past the ad blockers is still counted.
With 8,500 computers on the government’s network used by MPs, their staff, and the staff of both Houses, the unintentional clicks or pop-ups can add up. Plus, the data includes personal devices when logged on to the Parliament’s guest Wi-Fi.
But completely discounting these statistics as innocent mistakes could be a little generous, given what we know about porn in the workplace.
Porn and Work Don’t Mix
Last year in the US, up to 100 federal government employees admitted to or have been caught viewing pornography while on the job in the past five years.
Other examples include a Baltimore city employee who was fired for watching 39 hours of porn over two weeks, an FBI employee imprisoned for child pornography, and four judges in the UK dismissed for consuming porn on court computers. Yikes.
In 2014, researchers focused on the risks male porn consumers took to keep viewing pornography by asking them how often they viewed porn at work. Here’s what they found out:
Because most companies have a zero-tolerance policy for looking at porn at work, (i.e. if you get caught looking at porn at work you get fired) viewing porn at work is a significant risk of harm. Yet, over one-half (52%) of men age 18-30 admit to risking their careers and livelihood by viewing porn at work within the past 3 months. The numbers are even higher for men ages 31-49, with nearly three-fourths (74%) watching porn at work. In addition, 14% of men ages 18-30 and 20% of men ages 31-49 admitted that they viewed porn more than 10 times at work in the past 90 days.
Related: 11 Shocking Stories Of People Watching Porn In Public
There are some dizzying numbers and percentages here, but here’s the bottom line: people aren’t leaving porn watching to private time, despite the risks to their career and reputation. It seems as if they simply can’t control themselves, which indicates an even more serious problem.
Not A Harmless Way to Pass Time
As if losing your livelihood isn’t enough of a deterrent, watching porn can have negative impacts on your work, seeing as excessive use has been linked to memory issues, worsening anxiety and depression, and increased impulsivity, the reason you have a hard time focusing and finishing a task. Not to mention, porn is a complete waste of time.
Whether you work in a government position or a Starbucks, bringing porn to work is just not worth it.
Back to the British, David Leavey, previously a Parliament official, had this to say about his old workplace,“I think what goes on in Parliament is probably not that much different from what goes on in other well-regulated working places.”
Well, he’s not wrong. Unfortunately.
Stand up and speak out, and spread the word that porn is anything but harmless entertainment.
What YOU Can Do
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