There is a loss of time, as we mentioned in Cost #3. Anyone who dabbles in pornography will tell you that one of the consequences is that they “don’t know where the time goes.” Here are some basic statistics. According to CyberSentinel.co.uk, teens spend about one hour and 40 minutes a week browsing sites for pornography, which amounts to 87 hours a year spent surfing for porn (Source:dailymail.co.uk; Sourc:electricpig.co.uk calls UK teens porn addicts; Source: arstechnica.com: UK teens spend 5% of online time on porn). According to SexTracker, an adult search engine, reports that 70 percent of pornography is viewed between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. That is a lot of work time lost!
So how is the time lost? Well, as I said last time, Dr. Carnes in The Shadows of the Net, mentions that addicts enter a online trance where hours can pass by without notice. So what feels like 10-15 minutes was actually 3-4 hours. Medically, addicts are filled with adrenalin and dopamine and serotonin so much so that we don’t notice the passage of time. So for an addict, they can easily spend entire days looking at pornography without realizing where the day went.
Besides the amount of time that looking at pornography takes, I could not find the amount of time spent to cover up “the crime.” Think about it. How much time is lost covering your tracks? How much time is lost trying to see if anyone knows about your pornography usage? How much time is lost (and this one is the killer for me)Â fixing a virus that we got from looking at pornography?
I know in my life, I have spent countless hours re-formating my PC so that it will act normal again (and it never does). I have spent countless hours trying to remove spyware, adware, etc. so that my wife simply won’t know…really, to no avail. She just doesn’t understand why it takes me so long to do this or that. As far as she is concerned, I should not only have task A done, but task B, C, and D done as well. There have been times in my life where my wife went somewhere (an errand or work or something) and she gave me a list of “Honey-Please-Do’s” which I agreed that I would do (and we all have the freedom not to agree). Since I agreed, she rightfully expected me to have it all done. However, I cannot tell you how many times she came home and I had only accomplished one item on the list, if any. Simply because I lost track of time due to looking at pornography, then spending time to cover it up, then thinking of a lie to tell her why I couldn’t get it all done (which I couldn’t keep track and was often found out though she gave me chance after chance to tell the truth and to be trusted with my time, etc.).
And finally, how much time is spent worrying about whether you will be caught? How much time is spent manipulating people so that you can determine how much they know or don’t know about you in regards to your pornography problem? This is one area that I don’t spend so much time on if I can help it because I get so exasperated, frustrated, and desperate. I have come to a point where I choose not to think about other people, just another manifestation of my utter selfishness.
So how much time are you losing each day, each week or each month looking at pornography? How much time are you losing covering up your sin? Think about all the things you can do with that time. What else could you be doing?
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