Porn Panic: Addicted To Nonsense

At the beginning of the week, an unsettling headline swept across news sites. A tenth of the UK's 12 to 13-year-olds are, apparently, ADDICTED to porn. The BBC led the charge, rehashing a press release sent out by the NSPCC, which is launching a campaign with Childline – Fight Against Porn Zombies (FAPZ) – to highlight the effects of too much exposure to porn.

Other news outlets followed suit and each story stuck to the same format: scary headline about children unable to stop watching porn, a couple more stats and a quote from Esther Rantzen. No one was questioning the findings themselves.

The aims of the NSPCC campaign are admirable: children are undoubtedly seeing more porn than ever before, and considering the dire state of sex-ed in British schools it's clearly a good thing that the charity is doing what it can to address the issue. But the idea of porn "addiction" is highly contested among academics and medics, so why did so many children put their guilty hands up?

Such inflammatory findings, when published by a respected national charity, would usually be accompanied by a full report of the study. Not in this case. All the NSPCC would offer was an extended press release with some more quotes from concerned parties.

It turns out the study was conducted by a "creative market research" group called OnePoll. "Generate content and news angles with a OnePoll PR survey, and secure exposure for your brand," reads the company's blurb. "Our PR survey team can help draft questions, find news angles, design infographics, write and distribute your story."

The company is super popular on MoneySavingExpert.com, where users are encouraged to sign up and make a few quid. Here's what that website says: "Mega-popular for its speedy surveys, OnePoll runs polls for the press, meaning fun questions about celebs and your love life."

So the company behind these stats about porn addiction are known for their quick and easy surveys and promise to generate headline-grabbing stats. An unusual choice, perhaps, for such a sensitive subject...

Frankie Mullen, Vice

'If a statistic seems wrong or unbelievable, it probably is...' - Someone's Law (forgotten whose).

Edit:It's Twyman's law.

And as the author points out,anyone who says people can get 'addicted to porn' is an idiot (slight paraphrase).

Update: But don't let that stop you...

'A shocking ten per cent of 12 and 13-year-olds believe they are already addicted to watching porn' etc etc.

PS More on bad data churnalism and dodgy polls.