If You've Never Done This Raise Your Hand - Anyone?

A large part of my job is conducting research projects. I enjoy it, but it has its challenges. When doing research involving human subjects, one of those challenges is finding a sufficient number of qualified participants.

For example, if I'm researching the factors influencing smart phone adoption by older Americans, I need to find a large enough sample of mature subjects who use smart phones, along with a similarly-sized sample of older people who don't use smart phones (for compare-and-contrast purposes). Each sample has to be large enough so I can control for other factors such as gender, ethnicity, income levels, education, and so forth.

That need for compare-and-contrast samples is a requirement for just about any research study involving people. As the researchers running this particular study found out, in some cases that's easier said than done.

Pornography study doomed to fail after scientists couldn't find a single man who hadn't viewed X-rated material

Scientists studying the effects of pornography fell at the first hurdle - after failing to find a man who had not viewed X-rated material.

The researchers were comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography to regular users.

But Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse, of Montreal University in Canada, said: 'We started our research seeking men who had never consumed pornography. We couldn't find any.'

And they're surprised why, exactly?

I guess they could have gone to Utah and asked some of those good Mormon youth. Or perhaps the Amish in Pennsylvania. But it appears that they limited their search to Canada. Given the winters that our neighbors to the north experience, it's no surprise that the young men up there turn to porn. After all, there's just so much hockey a guy can watch.

But like all good researchers, Dr. Lajeunesse is nothing if not flexible.

Although hampered in its original aim, the study was then changed to examine the habits of men who regularly used porn.

It found single young men viewed such material on average for 40 minutes three times a week, compared with those in relationships, who watched it 1.7 times a week for 20 minutes.

Those of us in the research business just love findings like these, because they can lead to further studies and, with a little bit of luck, even government funding. For example, do those young men in a relationship view porn alone or with their significant others? Why do the porn-viewing episodes of single young men last twice as long as involved young men? Is there a difference in the type of porn viewed by the two groups? And so on and so forth.

The search for truth is often long and arduous, but it's something we academics are committed to...