I did some quick calculations:
There are about 25.5 million teenagers in the USA (ages 13-19). On average, each one spends 87 hours per year looking for or at pornography online. That means U.S. teens spend about 2.2 billion man-hours on pornography per year.
There are about 230 million adults in the USA (ages 20 and up). On average, each one spends 40 hours (extrapolating from the Brits) looking at pornography. That means US adults spend an estimated 9.2 billion man-hours on pornography per year.
So, all together, US adults and teens spend 11.4 billion man-hours per year on internet pornography alone.
We also spend over $13.3 billion on pornography in the United States every year. And that number is even a few years old.
Here area few other things we could do with that same time and money:
With that same amount of time (man-hours) we could…
- Build the Empire State building…1,628 times.
- Visit every single one of the 1.5 million U.S. nursing home residents, every single day of the year, for 20 hours a day…and still have free time left over.
- Visit every single one of the 2 million prisoners in the United States, every single day, two people at a time, for 8 hours.
- Have every single person (310 million) in the U.S. spend an extra 36 hours in prayer.
- Spend 3 extra hours per week with each and every one of the 75 million teens and children in the United States.
With that same amount of money we could…
- Provide, prepare and serve 7 billion school lunches. That’s enough to feed over 38 million students every school day of the year.
- Pay for 1.9 million four-year college degrees.
- Build 190,000 Habitat for Humanity homes…in Orange County, CA. Or we could build 7.25 million of them in India.
- Give $13.3 million to one thousand different charities each.
- Feed 1 billion people a meal…70 times.
And this says nothing of all of the other negative side effects that would be avoided if we could give up our porn – the loss of sanctifying grace being chief among them.
How many marriages are stressed by it? How many families broken? How many addictions formed? How many marital unions defiled, nullified and deeply scarred? How many abusers made callous to the dignity of the human person? How many brains are re-wired to objectify rather than dignify? How many innocents are spoiled?
How many problems would be improved or solved if we could only give up our porn? What a waste.
Here is a good video with more food for thought:
[photo credit]
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I just wanted to say thank you for your blog. You post things that us Catholics can relate to, as well as things for non-Catholics, and all-in-all, every post shows a better way to show God’s love. Thank you, Matt.
Whitney – that’s very nice of you to say! Thank you!
I agree, Whitney! Thank you, Matt!
On this note-it was this blog that stopped me from becoming Presbyterian and staying Catholic. So, yeah, thanks.
@Catholic Pro-lifer – that is so humbling to know that. The Holy Spirit is awesome. Thank you so much for sharing! God bless you!
@Cecilia – Thanks for your support!
Of course, all this is purely hypothetical. We still really love porn.
What if we didn’t love TV so much? Americans spend 250 billion hours watching it per year!
Still USA declared Pakisthan as the country having the highest porn watchers…..????
(by the time i finish writing this a child in africa will have died of hunger)
god is a piece of s%&$, i will never believe in a man who “loves everyone” and still lets children starve to death everyday.
……rest in peace poor child
Jason – I can understand why that’s hard to understand. But God loves us enough to respect our free will. He has much bigger and beautiful plans for every child, regardless of what kind of hard life we are dealt here on Earth. The fact that we let some of our children starve certainly saddens God. But he still respects our free will to do it. In fact, if he didn’t respect our free will in order to erase any kind of suffering in the world, he would also destroy the possibility for Love itself. In order for love to be love, it must be a free choice, not one we are compelled to make by a God that controls every little thing about the world. God knows that in order for genuine love to be possible, he must respect our free will everywhere. In order for our choice for Good to be genuine, we must have a legitimate option to also choose evil. That is one reason why suffering exists. It’s the reason evil exists and that God allows evil to exist.
There is a LOT written on just this topic and it goes much deeper than this simple explanation. If this is something you’re truly interested in, I hope you’ll consider reading a bit more. It really helps make a lot more sense of the world and the suffering we see. And truly, it brings deep meaning and value to the suffering. As evil as some things are, there is much good that can come out of them despite the evil. That’s where real peace and joy in an admittedly tough world can be found.
One book I really like on the topic is by Peter Kreeft called, “Making Sense out of Suffering.” I hope you’ll pick it up and give it a read.
God bless ya.
What an awesome response Matt. I struggle with such responses when many of my friends who aren’t believers challenge me and my faith. But thanks be to God, He somehow always fills me with the necessary Graces in times of extreme need.
I will pray for you and your blessed ministry of this most Holy Spirit filled blog.
We must be Christian soldiers. We must retake the world’s heart for God. The battle for man’s sexuality ultimately lies on the moral alone, because uprooting the seed of evil and sin rather than hacking off the branches will solve the problem completely. This world is not yet lost, and only sinners and saints alike who thirst for God will make worthy its salvation.
Good job, Matthew.
God Love You.
JMJ
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Augustine of Hippo, pray for us.
Kayla Cox: “What if we didn’t love TV so much? Americans spend 250 billion hours watching it per year!”
No doubt, but one bad habit at a time. I think the key paragraph that distinguishes what he’s speaking about from TV is:
“How many marriages are stressed by it? How many families broken? How many addictions formed? How many marital unions defiled, nullified and deeply scarred? How many abusers made callous to the dignity of the human person? How many brains are re-wired to objectify rather than dignify? How many innocents are spoiled?”
TV brings a lot of bad things into our homes, and certainly consumes our time, but while TV sometimes can degrade us as persons and societies, porn pretty much does that by definition.
libu: “Still USA declared Pakisthan as the country having the highest porn watchers…..????”
I don’t think “USA” declared it, so much as some snarking news sources. But yeah, we all have to embrace the challenge to turn the gospel on ourselves rather than on the other.
Thank u for this! Noone speaks enough about what porn is doing to our world…we also must look at the tv, ads,etc that is soft porn to sell consumers n mold the minds of our young people that they need sex n more n more of it to be happu…dont get me wrong i love being intimate with my husband, but not if i were just an object for his pleasure.
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