Science and research are catching up with the facts about porn and its findings are becoming clearer—it’s harmful. Did you know that porn can mess with your head, rewiring the actual chemistry of your brain?
Psychologist and former Stanford University professor, Philip Zimbardo, gave a TEDx talk called “The Demise of Guys,” claiming that young men’s brains are being “digitally rewired” due to excessive porn consumption and video gaming. He calls this issue a social “crisis,” a public health issue that must be addressed. Check it out:
“They are combining playing video games with—as a break—then watching on the average two hours a week [of] pornography,” he told the BBC, describing results he observed after surveying 20,000 young people, the majority of whom were young men. “It’s a new kind of addiction.”
Turning to fantasy over reality
Zimbardo, who is the former president of the American Psychological Association, says, “Kids are getting turned on by watching video, but physiologically they are less aroused. We call it P.I.E.D.—Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction.”
Zimbardo, who released a book titled Man (Dis)connected, states in the talk that “guys are flaming out academically, wiping out socially with girls and sexually with women.” He says that the mixture of porn and gaming is pushing young men into a sort of manhood crisis that leaves them bored at school, uninterested in human interaction, and seeking isolation from society.
Related: Why Porn Leaves Consumers Lonely
He argues in his book that hardcore porn and gaming provide alternatives to real-life entertainment and relationships that are “far less demanding and far more appealing for many than sex, sports and social interaction in the real world.” But by seeking these more isolated activities, cognitive and social development are suffering, which then has a major negative impact on success in every day life and relationships.
Relationships are tough, but so essential
Let’s be real. Making and maintaining relational connections with people is hard work, but it is essential for a healthy, happy life. If teens are opting for virtual reality over real life, whether it’s porn or video games, they’re setting themselves up for potentially harmful habits that won’t be healthy for their relationships.
Zimbardo encourages parents and society as a whole to recognize the issue and to keep track of their kids’ online media consumption, particularly when it comes to porn and video gaming.
Scientists and researchers have consistently released their findings for the past several years, signaling that Zimbardo is definitely not the first expert to warn about the negative effects of watching porn. Dr. Norman Doidge is a world renowned psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and researcher, and he works at the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychiatry and is also on the Research Faculty at Columbia University’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research in New York.
Related: How Porn Changes The Brain
Along with being the author of two New York Times Bestsellers, Dr. Doidge has done extensive research on the effects that porn has on the brain. The following quote from Dr. Doidge’s best selling book, The Brain That Changes Itself, is one that illustrates perfectly how porn can affect the brain:
“Sexual tastes are molded by an individuals experiences and their culture. These tastes are acquired and then wired into the brain. We are unable to distinguish our ‘second nature’ from our ‘original nature’ because our neuroplastic brains, once rewired, develop a new nature every bit as biological as our original.”
Dr. Donald Hilton, another world renowned psychologist and researcher on the harmful effects of porn on the brain, said the following in his published study titled, Pornography addiction – a supranormal stimulus considered in the context of neuroplasticity:
“Pornography is the perfect laboratory for this kind of novel learning fused with a powerful pleasure incentive drive. The focused searching and clicking, looking for the perfect masturbatory subject, is an exercise in neuroplastic learning.”
Basically, porn can be highly addicting and highly exciting to our brains. Because of that, porn poses a very real risk to how our brains function normally. If a consumer constantly watches porn that contains violence, rape, humiliation, or any of the other infinite categories of hardcore content out there, these things actually start to become what the consumer thinks is attractive, sexy, and desirable. How is that healthy?
But there’s good news, on the flip side—neuroplasticity works both ways. That means that the damage to the brain can be undone when someone gets away from unhealthy behaviors. Pretty cool, right?
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Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
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