You know the guy I’m talking about. He spends hours into the night
playing video games and surfing for pornography. He fears he’s a loser.
And he has no idea just how much of a loser he is. For some time now,
studies have shown us that porn and gaming can become compulsive and
addicting. What we too often don’t recognize, though, is why.
In a new book, The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It,
psychologists Philip Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan say we may lose an
entire generation of men to pornography and video gaming addictions.
Their concern isn’t about morality, but instead about the nature of
these addictions in reshaping the patten of desires necessary for
community.
If you’re addicted to sugar or tequila or heroin you want more and
more of that substance. But porn and video games both are built on
novelty, on the quest for newer and different experiences. That’s why
you rarely find a man addicted to a single pornographic image. He’s
entrapped in an ever-expanding kaleidoscope.
There’s a key difference between porn and gaming. Pornography can’t
be consumed in moderation because it is, by definition, immoral. A video
game can be a harmless diversion along the lines of a low-stakes
athletic competition. But the compulsive form of gaming shares a key
element with porn: both are meant to simulate something, something for
which men long.
Pornography promises orgasm without intimacy. Video warfare promises
adrenaline without danger. The arousal that makes these so attractive is
ultimately spiritual to the core. Continue at Russell D. Moore
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