3. Are Pornhub statistics useful for social scientists?

Are Pornhub statistics useful for social scientists?

I went on a little diatribe in another comment defending the basic descriptive stats that came out as not being obviously wrong, but I'm going to answer your question with a not very. It depends a lot on what data they would or could share.

The most obvious things that they definitely can do is tell us 1. How much Pornhub porn do people watch? 2. Which and which kinds of Pornhub porn videos are being watched?
3. What Pornhub porn is being highly rated? They could do some things to clean up and organize this data that would be more useful than what appears on the site. What good would it be? Basically, it would be good for content analyses of pornography. This is already very possible, though.

If they have and could share detailed individual-level histories with temporal information (deidentifed of course) those could be used to study quite a few questions about pornography consumption -- people might easily study addiction if they had that kind of data, for instance. Think about if that's the data you had-- what could you do with it? Quite a bit more than content analysis but you can't connect that behavior to much externally. It's unclear whether they have such data and whether they could/would share it. If they do have it, they have obvious reasons not to want people to be thinking about it.

How could it go beyond? What people could really learn a lot from is connecting individual level behavior on the site to other things-- e.g. to personality or demographic characteristics, to other sexual behaviors, to all kinds of things. They are both less likely to have this kind of data (info about the user independent of the site) and are going to be even less inclined to make it known they have it. But if they have it and share it, depending what exactly it is, that is what would truly be useful.

I wrote this because I had basically already written a memo like this for my boss because we have a shitload of GoogleAds data (which they gave us) but if it's all aggregate level stuff that I can't connect to individual users I can't do much that would be publishable. If I can see individual-level stuff, I can do a lot more. That would be enough-- but that is also limited if I don't know anything about those people. If I had that too, it would be a goldmine.

/r/AskSocialScience Thread
Previous
Next

Recently removed from /r/AskSocialScience

What is the racist assumptions behind comments like "at least I know my dad" towards black people? What was the academic opinion on the prohibition of marijuana usage at the time it was declared? How bad of a rise in white nationalism is there really? Part of me hopes that it's simply sensationalism, but after the recent shooting in El Paso and actually running into someone who is probably a Nazi sympathizer, I dont know anymore. Did racism as a concept evolve from tribalism? Is species a social construction in the same way race and gender can be described as such? The difference in the eye of the system between Afro-American people. How does climate affect human behavior? What caused young people to form "subcultures" in high schools in the 20th century and why is this phenomenon seemingly disappearing? Evidence of single mother children being more inclined to be democratic? Why is Chinese culture less altruistic than Western cultures? Is my friend's therapist a hack? Why do some guys become "players" in high school while others are lonely and have low social confidence? Is there any relation between their dating success and the way they were raised at home? What is the most effective way to filter out 'post-truth politics'? Or, how does one deal with their own belief perseverance? How did ethnic jews go from an oppressed minority to considered essentially white (outside white supremacist circles) in just a few decades? Q: What can be done to cope with the rise of the "obsoletariat"?

More Random Comments

Overview for ItsMeArcy Holy fuck, the entirety of Reddit has been taken over by /r/redacted. EVERY SINGLE SUBREDDIT HAS SOMETHING ANTI-TRUMP. It disgusts me looking at the front page of /r/all. This place is the only sane place left. The media is perpetuating hysteria. I've read the Executive Order and from my research I've compiled a list of fact checks over the last few hours. [Map] Countries where citizens are banned from visiting the U.S. (red) and countries with business ties to Trump Organization (yellow) My first rifle. bulletproof plan How to tell the quality of the toilet tissue you purchase Do you think that bringing back public executions would help deter crime? What is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you? This is, Judge Ann M. Donnelly, who issued the first stay of an executive order by President Donald Trump, which restricted immigration into the United States and prevented the return of green-card holders and others. Why is python3 adoption slow even though there are tools for migration? Customs agents ignore judge, enforce Trump’s travel ban: ACLU PC vs. PC social (and other) skill checks. Customs agents ignore judge, enforce Trump’s travel ban: ACLU Which thing made you cry a lot in your life?