Exploring the Lived Experience of Problematic Users of Internet Pornography: A Qualitative Study (2020)

COMMENTS: New qualitative study on porn users reports myriad negative effects related to porn use. A few selected excerpts:

Participants described symptoms of anxiety and depression, poor concentration, and an inability to focus on essential tasks. They also reported feelings of shame, low self-worth, and guilt. Many also reported that their use of IP led to reduced sleep and, as a consequence, low mood and feeling unmotivated or lethargic during the day. This seems to have had an adverse flow-on effect, influencing their engagement with work or study, social activities, and significant others. Many participants reported feelings of loneliness and alienation as well as self-imposed isolation. One participant remarked that his use of IP has affected his ability to concentrate and has “interrupted my ability to focus on lengthy tasks, including reading and writing.” A participant discussed the effects of his IP use as resulting in a “lack of motivation, clarity, and brain fog. Like I said before, dealing with drug/alcohol abuse has played a role, but I experience a hungover feeling now after watching porn”. This was echoed by the other participants, as exemplify.

Participants reported experiencing symptoms of both social and general anxiety, symptoms of depression, including amotivation, isolating behaviors, and low mood, which they attributed to their ongoing use of IP over time. As one participant stated, “It has caused me to be lonely, depressed, and decreased my motivation to try and do things I care about or that require some willpower. It has contributed to my social anxiety”. Another wrote that “it slowly made me depressed since the age of 17-18. I couldn’t find out what’s wrong with me the whole time. But since I quit, I more and more realized how lonely I really am and that isolating myself has had to do with it”. The following participant expressed his confusion about the relationship of IP use to his symptoms of poor mental health and his suspicion that it may have negatively influenced his perception of women.

Participants reported reduced sleep affecting their mood and ability to perform normal tasks after engaging in IP use for long hours. Many participants reported feeling lethargic and having “no energy” during normal waking hours.

Participants reported experiencing symptoms of “brain fog,” an inability to focus, and “ADHD” like symptoms. A number of participants reported a reduced ability to perform complicated tasks such as homework or work-related tasks, even when to not do so would cause significant consequences as one participant noted, “ADHD, Brain Fog, lack of concentration, stumbling about porn even when doing important work.”

Respondents reported a lack of intimacy and engagement in “real-life” relationships. These included both sexually intimate and platonic or familial relationships. They reported ongoing use of IP made them less likely to seek out connections with other people, including friends, family members, partners, children, and notably, members of the opposite sex.

Participants reported feeling alienated and disconnected from others due to their growing preference to be alone to view IP. One participant wrote, “Porn surfing has stopped me from participating in life in every way. I don’t socialize; I don’t celebrate, I don’t participate.” This self-imposed isolation seemed to perpetuate the reliance on IP to meet sex and intimacy needs as well as making the participants feel even more detached and alienated from other people.

Respondents reported having developed unrealistic and negative associations regarding women, feeling a conflict between desiring connection with them, and being unable to reconcile the images in their mind with the real women they knew, with one participant saying, “It made me a pathetic and shy loner, who saw women largely as sex objects while at the same time being scared of them in real life.”

Viewing of porn impacted the participants’ attitudes to women in particular, with one participant stating that porn has “made me objectify women. Whenever I see a beautiful woman, instead of appreciating their beauty, I would think of masturbating.” Standards of beauty were also influenced by IP, as one participant noted, “It made me feel negative feelings towards the female gender, and I was a lot less attracted to average women.”

The participants reported experiencing symptoms of feeling “addicted” to IP. The language of dependency, i.e., “cravings,” being “sucked in,” and “habit,” was used often. Participants also reported symptoms and experiences consistent with addictive disorders such as; an inability to reduce use of IP, increased use of IP over time or needing to use more extreme forms of IP to get the same effect, use of IP as a way to manage discomfort or gain a sense of satisfaction or “high,” and continuing to use IP despite negative consequences and life outcomes. The following sub-themes illustrate these phenomena.

Escalation was often described as either spending more time on IP or finding it necessary to view more extreme content in order to experience the same “high” over time, as this participant disclosed, “At first, I watched relatively soft porn, and as years passed by, I moved towards more brutal and degrading kinds of porn.”

This escalation to more extreme, novel, and often violent content also contributed to participants’ feelings of shame associated with their IP use

Escalation was often described as either spending more time on IP or finding it necessary to view more extreme content in order to experience the same “high” over time

Escalation of porn use was also linked to erectile dysfunction in some of the participants, as they found that after a time, no amount or genre of porn was able to cause them to have an erection, as described in the next subtheme.

Symptoms such as erectile dysfunction- conceptualized as an inability to gain an erection without porn or with a real-life partner- were often described: “I couldn’t get an erection with women I found attractive. And even when I did, it didn’t last long at all.” These symptoms were often lamented by the participants, with one participant declaring, “It has kept me from having sex! Lots of times! Because I can’t stay erect. Enough said.”

Participants reported spending more extended amounts of time viewing IP and consequently neglecting other areas in life, reducing time spent pursuing relationships with others, personal development goals, career goals, or other activities, “Mainly, it takes time away from me,” said one participant. “Watching porn takes away study time, work time, time with friends, rest time, etc.” Another participant noted that the time taken up by viewing IP had a negative effect on his productivity; “Then there is the sheer amount of time I have spent viewing internet porn rather than doing something constructive.” The impact of lost time is hard to quantify, as this participant stated, “I lost count of the times when I was watching porn and was supposed to be doing something else which was really important.