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ChrisHallquist comments on Open Thread for February 3 - 10 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: NancyLebovitz 03 February 2014 03:30PM

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Comment author: ChrisHallquist 07 February 2014 11:43:50PM 5 points [-]

1 and 2 apply to entertainment in general. There's something to be said for cutting back on TV, aimless internet browsing, etc., but it makes more sense to focus on cutting back total time than eliminating one particular form of entertainment in particular.

As for 3, I'm not familiar with that particular study, but in my experience studies of "porn addiction" or "sex addiction" tend to rely on dubious definitions of "addiction." I'd advise against taking worries of porn addiction any more seriously than worries of "internet addiction" or "social media addiction" or "TV addiction" or whatever.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 12 February 2014 04:46:57PM 3 points [-]

I'd advise against taking worries of porn addiction any more seriously than worries of "internet addiction" or "social media addiction"

This sentence sounds like it's intended to communicate "porn addiction shouldn't be taken very seriously". But speaking as someone who is hardly ever capable of staying offline even for a day despite huge increases in well-being whenever he is successful at it, to say nothing about the countless of days ruined due to getting stuck on social media, these examples make it sound like you were saying that porn addiction was an immensely big risk that was worth taking very seriously indeed.

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 12 February 2014 05:01:11PM 0 points [-]

I actually had what you've said about social media addiction in mind when I wrote that sentence. So like, if you're losing entire days to porn, yeah, you have a problem. But if your experience is more along the lines of "have trouble not spending at least 15 minutes on porn each day," I wouldn't be more worried about that than "have trouble not spending at least 15 minutes on social media each day."

Comment author: WPKIOPHOWI 08 February 2014 08:47:13PM *  0 points [-]

Maybe 1 and 2 apply to entertainment in general, but I think there are a few things that make porn different:

  1. I suspect porn is in some way "more" of a superstimulus than most other forms of entertainment. At least for me, it seems to tap into a more visceral response. I don't know of any research about this, but that doesn't mean I should ignore that intuition.
  2. Many other forms of entertainment have plausible other benefits (albeit often minor). Reading fiction could plausibly improve your language ability and empathy. Gaming often has a social component or a skill-building component (even if that skill doesn't transfer to anything else or only transfers to other games). TV and movies may have some similar benefits to reading. All of them have the advantage of giving you topics to discuss with other people, whereas socially discussing the last porn you watched is usually not a good idea.

In addition, "quit porn" may be an easier rule to follow than "cut back on superstimuli (but don't quit any of them entirely)."

Comment author: lmm 09 February 2014 09:35:19PM 2 points [-]

It sounds to me like you've already decided you want to quit porn.

Comment author: WPKIOPHOWI 09 February 2014 10:04:34PM *  1 point [-]

If you're implying that my bottom line is already written, I don't think that's the case. Both of the points I made in response to ChrisHallquist were things that I had already thought of before he posted, so I wasn't just searching for a rebuttal to his points.

If you're implying that the arguments I've made seem to have already convinced me to quit...well, yes. That's why I'm posting here: to find out whether there's anything I'm missing.

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