The effect of lockdown following COVID-19 on the online pornography seeking and related behaviors among general population in India: An infodemiology study

Abstract

India imposed a strict lockdown to control the spread of
COVID-19 pandemic, which led to concerns expressed by
the scientific community and lay media alikeabout the
increased online pornography consumption and associated
problematic pornography use among the people. However,
this has not been systematically explored in the Indian
context. The present study aimed to evaluate the online
search interest for pornography seeking and help-seeking
behavior among the Indian population before and during
the first two phases of lockdown by conducting a Google
Trends analysis of the relative search volume (RSV) for
selected keywords. Our results showed that consumption of
online pornography (as depicted by RSV for porn-seeking)
was consistently higher than help-seeking for problematic
pornography use (as depicted by RSV for help-seeking).
Further, during the same time-period there was no peaking
of the RSVs for help-seeking and neutral keywords. This
can thus be interpreted that though there was a surge in
porn-seeking behavior, consumers didn't appreciate it to be
problematic in particular. Also, that it was not merely a
reflection of increased internet traffic during the lockdown
period. Our study also demonstrates the feasibility of using
Google Trend analysis as a useful approach for conducting
future research in a sensitive field like pornography.