Women are more likely to watch porn on their phones than men, with 80% of women visiting Pornhub in this way compared with 69% of men, according to research by the popular site earlier this year. While it's unclear why this is the case, it does suggest we should probably pay greater attention to new warnings about mobile porn watching.
According to tech firm Wandera, watching porn on your smartphone makes it easier for porn sites to expose your viewing habits, The Sun reported. "Watching mobile porn on your smartphone is a much higher risk than watching it on your PC," the firm cautioned.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
"Smartphone operating systems, especially Android, are not as secure as desktops, there are many vulnerabilities that can be easily exploited by hackers," it added. By contrast, desktop computers and laptops have better security settings.
Mobile phone operating systems are more prone to damaging software, aka malware, being installed automatically than PCs. Malware can gather personal information and data on your porn viewing habits, which can then be used to blackmail you (yes, just like that Black Mirror episode).
And the prospect of this is very real – a study by Wandera of what people were looking at on 10,000 different mobile devices in Britain and the US found that 40 of the top 50 porn sites were susceptible to malware. In addition, 34 people in every 10,000 were viewing porn on their work phones every day. (We can't even begin to comprehend what the figure would be for personal phones.)
It's not just porn sites that put us at risk of malware but, compared with other sites, Wandera said: "Adult, extreme and illegal content categories are far more likely to leak data, employ unencrypted technologies and otherwise expose organisations to risk."
Malware isn't the only risk of watching porn, of course. A recent study found that even a casual porn-viewing habit can affect our mental health and lead women to have "unrealistic expectations" of sex.
“Intercourse is shown to last longer than average, men sustain erections longer and women experience orgasms more easily than in real-world encounters," said Kaitlyn Goldsmith, who led the study by University of New Brunswick, Canada. Just something else to think about before you, er, log on tonight.
Watch this video next: