Social networking sites such as Facebook are now more popular in the UK than pornographic ones.
According to research from Experian Hitwise, figures for January 2011 show Facebook and other social networking sites account for 12.46 per cent of all UK internet traffic.
Entertainment sites – including porn – counted for just 12.18 per cent.
It is the first time that figures have shown social networking to be more popular than entertainment.
Experian Hitwise’s research director Robin Goad explained the increase, saying: “While social networks of course compete amongst themselves for users, many of those users have a high presence on multiple networks.
“One in every eight people leaving a social network visits another one immediately after.
“Facebook, for example, is a key source of traffic for many smaller social networks, while almost a fifth of people leaving Twitter go on to visit another social network.”
Earlier this year Facebook confirmed that almost half the UK population – around 30 million people – now have profiles on the site.
The internet giant also has a whopping 500 million users worldwide.
