“Coronavirus” kills “porn”

Do you know what are the most searched terms on the internet in recent times? The same question was asked by a group of researchers from a renowned social science study house in Argentina and produced a report on this social reality. I tell you...

More than five months after the onset of the pandemic, the subject  coronavirus  coped with communication channels: newspapers, tevé, radio, networks. Most of the information circulated daily refers to this issue. It relates to everything from cooking recipes, exercises to do at home, body care, marital issues, parenting, work, education, to searches for when and where the IFE is charged.

The word coronavirus occupies 9 out of 10 news stories on digital media covers and is even more sought after than “porn”. Yeah, like you read. More popular than pornography. It is worth noting that this was not always the case, during the first month of confinement, personal  interests  for porn and erotic content were at the top of the ranking. However, the matter changed over the weeks.

Data from the report, prepared by the Communication and Culture Department of  Flacso  Argentina together with the  Medifé Foundation,  put “coronavirus” in the lead, turned intoin the most sought term by Argentines in recent months. It even surpassed other more popular searches, such as porn, and is used indistinctively in reference to the pandemic, virus, or disease.

For the first time in recent years, an issue outside politics and economics dominated the Argentine media agenda. Coronavirus led trends and popular searches in news consumption, hoarding 9 out of 10 news published on the covers of the country's main digital media.

Belén Igarzábal, director of Flacso's Communication and Culture Department, Patricia Ferrante and Gabriel Kessler formed the team that carried out the research that focused on describing the most popular searches related to health and well-being.

But  virtual sex  and sexting showed peaks in searches when the Ministry of Health addressed the issue in one of its daily reports on the COVID-19 in Argentina and developed recommendations for a safe experience.

Since the first week of March, coronavirus became the most searched term in relation to national reality, surpassing “porn” the unbeatable word in web searches.

And you, what are you looking for on the internet?