These statistics are taken from a website called “Covenant Eyes”. Covenant Eyes is a great program that all staff at Vision Baptist Church uses. It is an accountability program that allows access to any website (not a filter), but records all activity and sends the log to a partner of your choice.

Why the need for accountability? Aren’t we all adults? Can’t we keep ourselves pure without someone constantly looking over our shoulder? Well, as these stats will tell you, the worst thing people do with temptation is trust themselves! The Bible says this in Jeremiah 17:9…

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

The attraction to pornography and other immoral things on the internet is not something that only affects non-Christians, or people “worse” than you. Everyone has the same battle with the same sinful nature:

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.” I Corinthians 10:13-14

These stats are a sobering reminder that we need to not just resist, but flee from these temptations. Remove the temptation, or remove yourself from the opportunity! That is just what Covenant Eyes does, it removes the opportunity to do things in secret that you will regret later.

• Two in five Internet users visited an adult site in August of 2005, according to tracking by comScore Media Metrix.
• 87% of university students polled have virtual sex mainly using Instant Messenger, webcam, and telephone (“CampusKiss and Tell” University and College Sex Survey. Released on February 14, 2006. CampusKiss.com. February 17, 2006).
• According to comScore Media Metrix, there were 63.4 million unique visitors to adult websites in December of 2005, reaching 37.2% of the Internet audience.
• According to the Florida Family Association, PornCrawler, their specialized software program, identified 20 U.S. companies that accounted for more than 70 percent of 297 million porn links on the Internet.
• By the end of 2004, there were 420 million pages of pornography, and it is believed that the majority of these websites are owned by less than 50 companies (LaRue, Jan. “Obscenity and the First Amendment.” Summit on Pornography. Rayburn House Office Building. Room 2322. May 19, 2005).
• The Internet pornography industry generates $12 billion dollars in annual revenue — larger than the combined annual revenues of ABC, NBC, and CBS (Family Safe Media, January 10, 2006).
• The largest group of viewers of Internet porn is children between ages 12 and 17 (Family Safe Media, December 15, 2005).
• 51% of Pastors say Internet pornography is a possible temptation. 37% say it is a current struggle. (Christianity Today, Leadership survey, Dec 2001.) 4 in 10 pastors have visited a porn website.
• Pornography is physically more addicting that cocaine and ‘imprints’ the mind with images. Overcoming pornography addiction takes years, and may affect you and everyone around you, the rest of your life.
• The average age of first exposure to Internet porn is 8 (Family Safe Media, December 15, 2005.)
• A study by Focus on The Family, (March 2000) shows one in five adults, 20%, which is nearly 40 million people, have visited a sexually oriented web site.
• Today’s Christian Woman in 2003 found that one in six women (17%) including Christians, struggles with pornography addiction.
• Previously, if you wanted pornographic material you could buy a magazine, video, or visit some establishment. All of these put you at ‘risk’ of being found out. Now, with computers being used in private, unaccountable settings, people can find and view hardcore pornography right in their homes and offices. This can quickly escalate into an addiction with great harm brought to individuals, children, wives and families.