Recently, British news broke that four judges in the U.K. were fired for watching porn on court computers. The U.K.’s Judicial Conduct Investigations Office said that while the porn that was viewed was not illegal, the judges’ actions were an “inexcusable misuse of their judicial I.T. accounts” and was “wholly unacceptable conduct for a judicial office holder.”
But these men are not alone. Not even close. One guy in Baltimore was canned for watching 39 hours of porn on his work computer over a two week period. That was nearly half of his total time on the job and equated to almost $2,000 in wages. There are also numerous reports of police officers watching porn while on duty and in their patrol cars.
And according to recent reports, more than 24,000 attempts to access pornographic sites were made on the British Parliament estate over a 5-month period. The number is 24,473 to be exact. If you break it down, that’s 160 times a day, or once every nine minutes.
We received this message not long ago from a Fighter who ran into a similar situation of catching someone watching porn on the job:
Unfortunately, this behavior happens everywhere all the time. We live in a generation where the most hardcore porn is completely free and available 24/7 with just the click of a mouse. Because of this, more and more people are putting their jobs at risk by looking at porn during work hours.
Porn on the job
In 2010, the Nielson Company reported that within the span of just one month, more than 21 million Americans accessed adult websites on work computers. That’s 29% of working adults who viewed porn at work. On average, the workers who looked at adult websites spent about an hour and 45 minutes on the sites within that month and the average time per session spent looking at porn as 12 minutes and 38 seconds.
Finally, in the report, it was stated that “adult sites” were the fifth most accessed category by workers.
Once again, this was all just recorded in only a one month span.
Related: Investigation Reveals Nearly 100 Federal Employees Watch Massive Amounts Of Porn While At Work
Since the Nielson study was only a report of one month, let’s talk about the entire scope of the issue. According to the Society of Human Resource Management, 70% of all online pornography access occurs between 9 AM and 5 PM, translating to the fact that 1-in-5 employees access porn at work.
Then, in a 2014 study of male porn consumers, researchers focused on the risks that they took to keep viewing pornography. Specifically, the survey asked how often the men viewed porn at work. This is what they found:
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.
It goes without saying, this is a huge issue.
Can’t leave porn at home?
It’s a concerning fact that working men and women can’t leave porn at home for the time they’re on the clock, even if it means risking their job. Doesn’t that say something about how consumers can become increasingly dependent on porn, so much so that it affects all facets of their lives? Or how it’s the go-to for when someone feels bored and wants something to occupy their time?
Science has shown that pornography can be addictive and changes the brain of the consumer. And not only does it harm the consumer, but it can have serious negative effects on their relationships, including their sex life. And besides the obvious fact that porn is just a waste of time, viewing it can also make the viewer depression and anxiety, and make them perform worse at their job.
Need we say more?
Not only is it a bad idea to watch porn at work, but it’s unhealthy to watch it at all.
