Possibility that the environmental burden is rising by evolving the main battlefield of pornography from magazines / DVD to online

Media of "porn" have evolved from magazines to videotapes and DVDs, but in recent years streaming movie services online have grown rapidly, and they have begun to function as a representative pornographic medium. However, as streaming pornography becomes more popular, there is a growing concern that the environmental burden will be higher than before.

The Environmental Cost of Internet Porn - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/12/the-environmental-cost-of-internet-porn/548210/

With the introduction of streaming music online, physically costing such as CD production, packaging printing, film for packaging, packing boxes, fuel for transportation, etc. are eliminated and more than 40% in consumption of music content He said that he succeeded in reducing carbon dioxide emissionsTrial calculation(PDF file)Has been issued. The same thing as music seems to apply to movie streaming, but according to the specialization analyzing the degree of environmental impact on the Internet, a major exception when the amount of carbon dioxide production is decreasing due to the advance of the media to the net is " It is said that it is porn.

In the porn industry it grew rapidly twice in the 2000s. At first it was the timing of the spread of broadband in the early 2000s. As the download speed increased, pornographic movie viewing became comfortable and pornographic content began to be consumed rapidly. And the second timing is the appearance period of the so-called "Tube-based site". With the advent of movie streaming sites represented by YouTube, consumption of movie content has exploded and porn has also benefited from it. Adam Grayson CEO of pornographic production company Evil Angel calls 2008 the "year of pornographic explosion".


There is no doubt that the fact that the mainstream of pornographic media has shifted to a streaming movie has the effect of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions per content playback as in the case of music CDs. However, unlike magazines, video tapes and DVD eras, it is pointed out that the overall consumption of contents is increasing in the streaming movie era. Since the porn industry does not provide detailed statistical data on the consumption of streaming content, the exact figure is not clear, but it is said that "the audience rating is rising" in the porn industry as a whole. According to Pornhub, the biggest provider of web traffic reports on a regular basis, the number of visitors to the site in 2013 was 14.7 billion, while in the year 2016 about 23 billion people used the service And that. And it seems that the total porn viewing time of the user has reached 4.459 billion hours only on the Pornhub site.

Despite the fact that individual content consumption itself has been made energy saving, the consumption itself has increased significantly, so the total environmental impact has been increasing in the present situation. Professor Nathan Ennsenger of Indiana University, in 2015The formula that Netflix made public in the blogAnd applied energy used by users to watch porn on Pornhub is estimated to be 5.967 billion kWh, which is said to be the same energy that lights 11,000 light bulbs for one year I will. Since Netflix is ​​an excellent service optimized for high efficiency, it is certain that energy consumption at Pornhub is more than trial calculation.


Dr. Gayle Dynes, a sociologist who studies pornography, has criticized the increase in environmental burden caused by increased consumption of pornography as it is a shame, on the premise that he does not know the exact figures on online pornography. Dr. Dynes said that the cause named "3A Law" appears in pornographic growth. It is said to be three causes, "Affordability (affordable price)" "Accessibility" "Anonymity (anonymity)".

Until then, pornography, which had been created by professional porn actors, has increased in both quality and quantity with the surge of amateur postings due to the advent of the digital era, coupled with on-line sales methods, low prices that can be said as price destruction of pornographic content The realization has been realized. Also, online pornographic content that has become available for playback on smartphones has high accessibility, compared with players such as pornographic theaters, VHS and DVDs used to date. And the appearance of unnecessary porn streaming service even with membership registration will provide anonymity required for sensitive content called pornography. Due to these three causes, porn consumption has increased dramatically. Under such circumstances, the "environmental burden" which has become a problem due to the increase in consumption of pornographic contents provides a suitable material showing harmfulness of pornography against pornographic opponents such as Dr. Dynes It seems.