Five Percent of Brits Confess to Using Facebook During Sex, Claims Durex

Here is what we know: Five percent of United Kingdom residents supposedly admit to having used Facebook during sex, and the number is twice as high for men as it is for women. That’s according to data released by condom company Durex, which surveyed several thousand Brits, Metro U.K. reports. 

Durex also found that 15 percent said they would answer a phone call or check a text during sex.

But much remains to be explored in the field of Boning While Facebooking. Like, say: What are British people doing on Facebook during sex? Just popping by to ‘like’ a few of your uncle’s beach photos or see how many comments your most recent status has gotten? Or something altogether more germane to the task at hand, like, say, checking with your very extroverted sex-blogger friend to see what was that position she raved about or taking advantage of a break in the action to check your hookup buddy’s profile and confirm once and for all whether his name is Matt or Max?

Which illuminates another point: It depends who you’re sleeping with. As Valleywag’s Sam Biddle noted in a 2012 defense of texting during sex, “You can't violate the intimacy of an emotionless, impulsive, sexual vacuum, because there's no intimacy there to begin with.” Same goes for a long-term, committed relationship if done sparingly, but nothing in between those two extremes will fly.

Finally, some have also questioned whether this rampant Facebooking is taking place during sex—that is, while coitus is literally still in progress—or immediately before or after. It’s a not insignificant distinction. Debby Herbenick, a sex researcher at Indiana University, suggested that the latter seems more likely.

“I doubt that many people check Facebook ‘during intercourse,’ but perhaps more do while in bed after intercourse,” Herbenick told Newsweek in an email. “That would be more believable, this idea that checking your smartphone is the new post-sex cigarette. But mid-thrust? Doubtful.”

“I highly doubt these numbers,” Herbenick added. “As noted in the article, it's not a scientific study.”