looking for a good time ? call ...
"85% of those surveyed were male". So how do I get in contact with the other 15% ?
Paris for the obvious reason.
Study reveals high price of porn addiction
Habitual viewers of smut often mess up their lives, according to preliminary analysis of a new study conducted by University of Sydney academics, who believe the problem is caused in part by the ubiquitous availability of online video nasties that viewers can watch anywhere, with many devices. Dr Gomathi Sitharthan from the …
-
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 09:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: lost their jobs or been in trouble with the law as a result of their addiction.
No, it would be like saying a percentage of habitual dope smokers have been in trouble with the law or lost their job as a result of their addiction.
Not the fault of the dope per se, but it's the element without which the result would not have happened.
-
Friday 11th May 2012 12:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: lost their jobs or been in trouble with the law as a result of their addiction.
Dope isn't addictive (unless you abuse the word addiction, as in "porn addiction"). We'd get a lot further with these debates if the distinction between habit and addiction was maintained.
The difference with dope is that it's illegal, so you can get in trouble with the law just by using it. Porn is not generally illegal, hence the connection to troubles with the law is necessarily more indirect.
Although, watching porn at work or smoking dope at work are equally likely to get you fired. I wouldn't know; being self-employed I can do both.
-
-
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 16:19 GMT Tom 13
Re: Cause and effect?
It's a chicken and egg problem. We know from biological studies that the endorphins released during sex are some of the most powerful and addictive that the human body encounters (just because they are natural doesn't make them safe). If that cycle is couple with an OCB personality, the results follow logically. Maybe the OCB would express itself differently if it hadn't encountered the sex endorphin cycle, but the sex endorphin cycle would certainly define that instantiation of the issue. Maybe it can be got at and resolved through other psychological methods, but I don't see that removing the sex component helps resolve the issue for the OCB patient.
-
Saturday 12th May 2012 12:52 GMT John Bailey
Re: Cause and effect?
Excessive anything is bad. Why be surprised that excessive porn users have problems, when we are not surprised excessive drinkers get drunk more often, and are prone to alcoholism, or excessive eaters are quite likely to be obese.
People use ?.
Some people over use ?.
Ban/control ?.
-
Sunday 13th May 2012 03:52 GMT Misoriented
Re: Cause and effect?
Once again, they're confusing correlation with causality. Dr Sitharthan says.”We are finding that people do understand that their excessive porn viewing is impacting on their lives and they want to change," so she clearly believes that porn causes bad things. But isn't it just as possible that people that have other problems, such as depression, unhappy relationships, or trouble at work, will turn to something like porn, drugs, alcohol, sports, reality TV, etc., to make themselves feel better?
Is it the porn causing the destructive behaviors, or the other way around? Maybe instead of judging porn users, these doctors should consider porn usage a possible indicator of a real problem and leave the moral judgements out of it.
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 05:55 GMT Suricou Raven
Still missing the vital statistic.
Numbers are nice, but everyone already knew there were some people taking porn-viewing to excess. That's true of anything - if you looked a bit, you should be able to find a few hundred people who ruined their lives by excessive television, gaming or religion. This study only looked at the extreme cases. What we really need is some idea of how many people who view porn fall into that category, as opposed to just enjoying it a couple of times a week and otherwise getting on with their lives.
I know a great many people who like porn, and yet somehow none of them have been fired or ran into legal trouble because of it.
-
Friday 11th May 2012 06:16 GMT Steve Ives
Statistics...
not read the original study, but nothing in here to suggest causation or a correllation. i.e. watching porn causing a crap life or crap life makes them watch porn?
Also - 20% would rather watch porn than be at it with a woman - so 80% would rather have the real thing but presumably aren't getting it?
Also - a lifestyle involving 'extreme' or 'excessive' porn causes trouble? Is that like saying the majority of people into armed robbery said that it ruined their lives, leading to legal trouble, job loss and social exclusion?
Inquiring minds...
Steve
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 07:10 GMT Cagey
From the article:
"surveyed 800 habitual online smut viewers and found “excessive users had severe social and relationship problems and had often lost their jobs or been in trouble with the law as a result of their addiction."
This is questionable science. In the first place how were the subjects selected? I find it hard to believe that a truly representative sample population could be obtained since I wouldn't expect that many smut viewers without problems would volunteer to be studied.
Second the conclusion apparently being drawn is that excessive viewing of smut results in severe social, relationship, and employment problems. It is just as likely that having such severe problems resulted in the excessive smut viewing as a distraction from reality.
This kind of bogus science shouldn't be taken as gospel. Sometimes scientists have personal axes to grind just like laymen.
===KGH
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Friday 11th May 2012 08:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
I know of two people who lost their jobs because they were downloading huge amounts of porn via an Internet connection at work. It turned out that one of them had lost his previous job for the same reason. In both cases, they were downloading so much that their systems featured in the top 10 Internet users - next to email, web and ftp servers. Both were employed in technical roles, so would have been aware of the concepts of firewalls and service monitoring.
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 10:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: two people who lost their jobs
"...they were fired for being morons then?"
Well, that's what I thought. I had even tried to warn the second one by moving a few of his pictures to his desktop and deleting the rest of his porn collection on his work-issued desktop but to no avail - I guess the porn addiction overrides all common sense.
-
-
-
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 08:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Danger of small numbers
The problem with studies like this, is just how tiny a number they represent - not only that, how are the subjects chosen in the first place?
Surely the act of signing up for a study would, in many cases, imply the subject is possibly in some sort of financial trouble, or is troubled within themselves?
Do they apply via adverts in papers? Are they just the type of people who are frequently used in different scientific studies for cash? Are they people that have already been in trouble for viewing smut?
The figure of 800 habitual viewers is given - how did they get chosen? - offered free smut for contributing? (smirk)
See where I'm going with this - unless you can do a totally random selection and guarantee those contributing are telling the truth and also get a *significant* volume of data, the results are tainted from the start.
This can be said of the vast majority of studies of a subjective nature.
-
Friday 11th May 2012 12:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Danger of small numbers
“Surely the act of signing up for a study would, in many cases, imply the subject is possibly in some sort of financial trouble, or is troubled within themselves?”
Nope, no such thing of all. There are many ways that people are recruited for these types of academic research and they don’t get paid.
From what I’ve read, the results – or rather the preliminary results, which are being discussed here – were obtained from an online survey. This is a very common method.
“See where I'm going with this - unless you can do a totally random selection and guarantee those contributing are telling the truth and also get a *significant* volume of data, the results are tainted from the start.”
Not really, this news article has been culled from a press release from a university about the preliminary findings from a research project. We’re just getting the juicy bits, which will ensure media coverage.
There will be a published paper in due course, which will state how the participants were chosen and the method of obtaining the information – it’s also very common for the writers to comment about the margin of error and about factors that may affect the actual findings. It’s when you’ve read that, that you’re in a position to really scrutinise the project.
-
Friday 11th May 2012 14:32 GMT Don Jefe
Re: Danger of small numbers
It would suck to be a subject in your lab then. Participants in most studies are compensated either through direct payments or course credit for uni students.
Also, no real study uses online respondants/participants. You just can't do science like that. I hope that's not what you're doing.
-
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 09:49 GMT blofse
I wonder if we are going to see more and more studies like this over the next year or so, with a miss-mash of information (to confuse), which then results in a government official quoting these reports as a way to argue about blocking web sites or white listing porn?
That is the government way after all!
But I hope not! I like porn! It keeps me from going ape-like mental when I see women (being single and all)....
-
-
Saturday 12th May 2012 09:13 GMT Francis Boyle
Re: @ blofse
If there is rigid online censorship in Australia I have yet to come up against it. The reality is that there have been persistent failed attempts at online censorship. Failed, because no one supports them except a few unrepresentative lobby groups which unfortunately have the main political parties running scared.
-
-
-
Friday 11th May 2012 12:23 GMT EvilGav 1
It's a fairly wide band of use, 30 minutes to 3 hours and what constitutes use? Is the 20 minutes to download the grumble flick included?
As others have said (and the author admitted), it is an extremely poor survey, based on a skewed initial view - you can change what the addiction is to anything and get the same results, i.e. a number of addicted people do it to the detriment of their job and life; a number would seek help; the number of addicts is skewed towards oen sex or the other and so on.
Focussing on smut is pointless, studying addiction and addictive behaviours in general might be a better idea. For example, why are some people more prone to being addicted than others?
-
Friday 11th May 2012 12:36 GMT Rodrigo Rollan
Statitistics are inconclusive, 90 percent of us know that
How do you define "Extreme porn viewing"? "Smut addiction" is exactly what ? How do yo exactly go from watching porn to having legal or interpersonal problems ? I am quite partial to the idea that it might be a symptom but definitively not the cause of their problems. And also , please provide d definition for relationship or interpersonal problems, since one mans meal is another mans poison (replace man with woman for same results).
-
Friday 11th May 2012 22:20 GMT Graham Marsden
Post Hoc != Propter Hoc
"Habitual viewers of smut often mess up their lives".
ORLY?
Or perhaps people who have messed up lives become habitual viewers of smut. Or alcoholics. Or drug abusers. Or resort to crime. Or...
The same goes for “excessive users had severe social and relationship problems and had often lost their jobs or been in trouble with the law as a result of their addiction” the conclusion seems to be that it's the porn that caused the problem, rather than the problem being the result of other factors and which is then manifested in this "addiction".
BTW "addiction" is a nicely pejorative term, but whilst drug addicts may mug grannies for their pensions to feed their habits, I don't think I've ever heard of someone doing the same so they can buy another porn mag or download a movie...
Meanwhile, *who* were these "800 habitual online smut viewers"? How were they selected? And if there were "800 habitual online smut viewers" how does that compare with the number of those who also view online smut but do not do it "habitually" (whatever that means, how frequently do you have to do it before it becomes "habitual")?
I found a link to the original survey, but, alas, the survey was no longer available which is a shame, because I'd have loved to see what the questions were and how impartially they had been phrased.
Some other questions:
"30 percent acknowledged that their work performance suffered due to excessive viewing" and how many "habitual" smokers acknowledge that their work suffers due to them gasping for a cigarette?
"20 percent of respondents said they preferred the excitement of watching porn to being sexually intimate with their partner" and what about those geeks out there (of which there are more than a few) who haven't got a partner because aren't good in social situations and, as such, find other ways to relieve sexual tension?
"Around 14 percent had formed a relationship with other online users" which is surely a good thing (but good things don't come from "addictions" do they?)
"18 percent were preoccupied with fantasising when they were not online" and it's only "habitual smut watchers" that have this problem. After all, it's not the same as thinking about the big match you watched yesterday evening or worrying about your financial problems when you should be working or...
And finally ""Watching porn is a learned behaviour and we believe it can be unlearned” says Dr Sitharthan. Why does this sound so disturbingly like the assertion from the last century that "Homosexualiy is a learned behaviour and we believe it can be unlearned”, resulting in attempts to "cure" gays by administering electric shocks for aversion therapy or, even, giving them lobotomies?
I think these researchers had a conclusion and then did their research to prove it.
-
Saturday 12th May 2012 21:30 GMT Bradley Hardleigh-Hadderchance
I have recently come to a conclusion
I only got connected to the internet a year or two ago.
Since then, I have made it my job to check out every dirty little slut that wants to display herself publicly for all and sunder.
I thought: this is an infinite well.
I thought: how deep does this shit run?
I realised about a week or two ago - I have viewed ALL THE FREE PORN ON THE WEB.
Sorry, sticky CAPS lock - occupational hazard. ;-)
The worst was seeing an ex-girlfriend in an extreme S&M flick made by her award winning for FILM boyfriend. I got over it eventually, but the shock was hard when not expecting it.
It's all shit. You don't need it. Any man that pays for it is a wanker. eh eh...
There is no substitute for closeness and intimacy between two human beings, be they of the same sex or different sex - don't matter.
I'll shut up now.
-
Sunday 13th May 2012 17:46 GMT Don Jefe
Re: I have recently come to a conclusion
That stuff sucks, but no need to be bitter about it man. They've been writing songs about it for at least 30+ years. The lesson is to learn what your current chick wants & give it to her. I dressed up like an astronaut once.
BTW you have only seen the edge of the universe of porn online. My advice would be stop digging. It only gets more awful,
-
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
