Some would argue that pornography is harmless. Others argue that it's immoral and brain changing. But, that's not the purpose of this article.
Here, we discuss pornography's negative influence on your smartphone. What!? Yes, and most people get very upset if you touch their smartphone!
A study from Blue Coat found that viewing pornography on a mobile device produces a much higher chance of malware infection.
Nearly one-quarter of all mobile malware comes from pornography websites. And, coincidentally, those pornography websites are responsible for more accidentally-downloaded malware than a combination of email spam + malicious websites + fake apps.
I've observed that most teens and adults cannot function without their mobile device. Thus, it's clearly not worth taking the risk of infecting your phone with malware. Who wants the down-time?
From a business perspective, employee down-time isn't productive.
Now couple that with a phone or tablet with a virus that leads to loss of company information, contacts, or data. The security risks are not worth taking, in many cases. Most IT departments would back me up on that point.
The problem with a mobile device is that you can't hover the mouse over a webpage link to see where it leads. It is tough to differentiate legitimate good links from bad.
Inhibitions are likely lowered a bit because you're taking a risk by visiting a porn site in the first place, so perhaps logic departs and you figure that one more risky link can't hurt.
But that's where you are wrong. The unknown link can lead to malware. Malware and viruses can lead to data theft or loss.
There's also the challenge inherent in viewing porn on your tablet. You might get caught. If in a public place, the behavior is risky. There are news articles about employees using company devices getting arrested for viewing child pornography, or others where distribution of indecent material is detected.
Or the high school teacher who inadvertently sent a sexually explicit text message to everyone in his address book (when he meant to send it to his girlfriend), and that group included his mother and some of the students at the school.
Will your employee confess to clicking on a pornography link after their mobile device is infected with malware? Not likely.
Best practices suggest controlling the apps and web sites that employees are able to visit to get the job done. In fact, one business owner told me it would be more cost effective to buy all employees a phone, and limit their use of apps and web sites while they are working.