Podcast: Masturbation, depression, porn – What Subomi Plumptre discovered when she looked at the dat

“Social media is like a treasure-trove because all of a sudden you have people sharing their behaviour(s) online,” says Subomi Plumptre, who started out as a researcher, and almost two decades after is Head of Consulting and Social Media at Alder Consulting. “In full view of the public.”

She pores through surveys and focus groups and other complex data gathering, but she finds that some of the most interesting numbers are, literally, at your fingertips: “It’s interesting what you can gather by studying Google Trends without even doing any in-depth study of data.”

And what she’s gathered: Nigerians are obsessed (and addicted to, which is her primary concern) with porn – especially, rather surprisingly, gay porn – and masturbation.

“With the internet comes greater access to porn and masturbation,” she explains on the podcast,Conversations with Chude. “It’s no longer the days of Dauda the Sexy Guy and Ikebe Supa, and all that. Now, you can literally search for anything you want online.”

Something shocked her: “I found out that (the numbers) for porn and masturbation in Nigeria, over a period of about ten years, were always 70 percent and above. And there are years when Nigeria surpassed United States of America on a number of search!”

Put that in context: The United States of America is almost twice as large in verified population as Nigeria.

“I am not concerned about what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms,” she makes clear. “I am concerned about the addiction, when they feel they have a problem. Because it is also hidden, people don’t know where to get help if they do need help.”

Then, on the other end of the spectrum – depression, in a country where many claim it’s not a real problem.

Plumptre begs to disagree: “I looked at Google trends and the third highest health search was for depression… in Nigeria!

“Maybe it’s because we don’t like talking about these things. So nobody wants to talk about rape. Nobody wants to talk about addiction to porn and masturbation. Nobody wants to talk about depression.”

She talks about the role the church plays, sometimes in compounding the problem. She talks about why people turn to the Internet rather than to counselors or even family. She talks about how she, and her boss have formed a collective that has helped over 400 people – and why that is barely scratching the surface.