Continued consumption of pornography is related to brain changes. Determining if there is a porn addiction problem or if there is too much consumption can help to know if there are compulsive behaviours or a problem that needs assistance.
Nearly 7 out of 10 teens use porn. According to information provided by the NGO Save the children, the first approach to this type of content by young people tends to be around the age of 12 and, over time, it usually becomes their main reference on how it should be given. Sexual affective behaviour in a relationship. In turn, this same source indicates that consumption is percentage higher in men (80%) than in women (40%). Based on these statistical data, it is important to highlight the implications that excessive consumption of this material can have on the psyche of young people.
The psychobiology of porn
The pornographic industry behaves like a drug, and it is that, unlike the pleasure that sexual practice can cause in our body, the pleasure given by pornography can lead to addictive behaviour due to the greater amount of dopamine that this triggers. This is because sexual practice is more related to the survival instinct of the human species, while, obviously, watching porn is not.
We all like to feel good, precisely for this reason, our brains, upon perceiving this greater discharge of dopamine through the consumption of porn, will encourage the repetition of the behaviour, causing the person to lose the ability to control their own sensations and will. This is going to cause the reward circuit to be affected over time and, consequently, the same production of dopamine, being necessary to consume higher doses of pornography so that it reaches the levels of satisfaction that it generated at the beginning, a process that is this is known as the “tolerance phenomenon”. Consequently, the person may develop a dependency problem towards pornography feeling more and more the need to be constantly stimulated to feel “stable”.
The Negative Effects of Having an Altered Reward Circuit
When we develop an addiction to pornography, our brain changes both structurally and chemically, and this is expressed through symptoms of anxiety, stress, difficulty concentrating on certain tasks, fear of making decisions, rapid mood swings for no apparent reason, lack of motivation, apathy, less desire to socialize, depression, tendency to procrastinate and a feeling of stagnation in life.
On the other hand, being exposed from such an early age to this type of content, the young person will generate an erratic conceptualization of sexual relations. This is because, in many cases, it is the first approach to a sexual act prior to experimentation itself, turning what they see on screen into standard sexual behaviour.
The long-term effects of altered reward circuitry
The more the reward circuit is altered, the greater the exposure in frequency and intensity of the stimulators will be required in order to reach the desired level of dopamine. This will be expressed in a migration of adolescents to the viewing of increasingly dangerous and harmful pornographic content, far exceeding the standards of what are acceptable, reaching alarming levels. Adolescents who are exposed to these contents more regularly will consider them normal and will begin to acquire risky behaviours that, ultimately, will harm their development.