Porn addiction affects the brain

Recently, a 13-year-old student told me in a note: “I really don’t agree about not having sex…but what you said about pornography is true, because I’m addicted.”  I had described the role of certain brain chemicals activated through viewing porn, and the potential for regular viewers  to become addicted.  Besides the obvious connection between pornography addiction and attitudes about engaging in premarital sex, there is also the misery of living with an addiction, and the inability to live a free life.  A recent study discussed in The Sunday News reported that “scans showed that a central portion of the brain which is stimulated in drug or alcohol addicts also ‘lit up’ when compulsive pornography users watched explicit material. There was no such effect in the brains of people who were not habitual users of porn.”  The article went on to suggest that studies such as this might lead to greater pressure on societies to tighten controls on pornography.