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Given the absence of real data (as in, studies that demonstrate conclusively that watching too much online porn has certain downsides), it's not surprising that

Given the absence of real data (as in, studies that demonstrate conclusively that watching too much online porn has certain downsides), it's not surprising that a lot of comments are resorting to anecdotal reasoning of the form: "Well, I use the internet and I'm ok..." Nonetheless, I think it's worth entertaining the hypothesis that in many ways the internet is like candy for your brain, and constant exposure might have subtle -- perhaps not yet fully recognized or appreciated -- effects on our cognition. We're running a vast uncontrolled experiment, and when things go wrong we (tech elites) tend to dismiss it with some variation of "Well, they had mental health issues or a parental problems or they would have been bullied anyway etc... etc... etc... It couldn't have been the internet." The problem is that these are the same sorts of arguments that have been deployed in the face of every technological advance. "It's not that video games are addictive, it's that people already prone to addiction choose to become addicted to video games. 100 years ago they would have been addicted to whist." I find this to be rather unpersuasive, generally, but I'm honestly also at a loss to articulate a compelling counterargument of my own. I have vague misgivings and a handful of anecdotes and not a lot of sound science.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago
> Nonetheless, I think it's worth entertaining the hypothesis that in many ways the internet is like candy for your brain, and constant exposure might have subtle -- perhaps not yet fully recognized or appreciated -- effects on our cognition. It does, actually. Read Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows' [0], it's a pretty decent book about the subject. It also starts off with comparing our usage of the internet with the rise of reading - you know, books and the like. History lesson; humans needed to adapt their brains to be able to read attentively for longer periods of time. The book contrasts that with the ADD nature of the internet, and yet, indicates how it's actually going back to where we were before. Or just a change similar to when books became publicly accessible. tl;dr, yes there is a change, but I don't think it's necessarily good or bad; just different. And shocking / to be resisted by the older generation, just as how their parents were shocked and resisting the Beatles and similar long-haired freaks. :p [0]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750 http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/...
shortlived 13y ago
Do we need real data to know that too much porn is a bad thing? > The problem is that these are the same sorts of arguments > that have been deployed in the face of every technological > advance I agree and at the risk of sounding like my parents, I think the internet is different. Never before has their been a technology so all encompassing and so powerful (and dangerous). If I wanted to look at pictures of girls when I was a horny teen, I had the bra section of the JC Penny catalog. The jump from that to the type of online porn that exists today is pretty big. Add to the fact that online porn is so much more accessible than visiting a porno shop, it's no wonder kids can fall into it more easily.
- existencebox 13y ago
  But lets turn back the clock a few thousand years, where pre-teen boys were practically expected to engage not only in sexual acts/experiences, but often with those FAR older than themselves. At the risk of more unsubstantiated statements (qualifier, I spent 7 years studying latin+latin history), I feel like the amount of sexual content exposed to children in that era was FAR greater than now, even with the internet+porn, just in different media, and handled in very different cultural and social light, with much less stigma. There seems to be a lot of paranoia around this issue, but observe that there have been HUGE ranges of how humanity has handled sexual content over the last few thousand years around the globe, and generally "we've turned out ok." This is a question that answering empirically will be VERY difficult, due to the sheer complexity of the human development process and the number of confounding variables, and I think a degree of faith needs to be had in the resiliency of our species and social structure to adapt.
  - coryfklein 13y ago
    I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. That exposure to hardcore porn online is okay because it's better than being raped as a child? Or it's okay because we can adapt to its negative influence and come out alright? What if I want something better than "ok" for my kids?
    - 13y ago
jdlegg 13y ago
I think the most concrete example of what you're describing is the "pattern" we saw with tobacco. Science suggested for a long time that cigarette smoking might be bad for you. As the evidence grew stronger, tobacco companies ran ads with Joe DiMaggio about how healthy their brand was[1]. Eventually the evidence was so irrefutable, and there were enough "casualties," that most reasonable people were forced to accept it. This seems like a pattern that repeats itself. It begins with anecdotal evidence, followed by a long period of scientific research, then propaganda campaigns and eventual acceptance. We're currently seeing it, about halfway through the curve, in the food industry with sugar. It's also happened previously with lead, seatbelts, asbestos, gambling, mercury, alcohol & driving, cholesterol, tanning booths, etc. And now, perhaps, it's starting on the effect of information consumption. I use the term "information consumption" because it seems to be about much more than just teenagers and their phones. [1] http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6149/6012309554_2c177196a8_z.jpg http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6149/6012309554_2c177196a8_z.j...
- DanBC 13y ago
  > tobacco companies ran ads with Joe DiMaggio about how healthy their brand was[1]. Tobacco companies actively engaged in a campaign of misinformation. They deliberately spread confusion about science.
Gormo 13y ago
> it's not surprising that a lot of comments are resorting to anecdotal reasoning of the form: "Well, I use the internet and I'm ok..." But this isn't an invalid argument in discussions like this. We're not looking at questions that pertain to intervene into the population aggregations here; we're talking about how we should approach the use of law to into the particulars of specific individuals' lives. "Data" may not be the plural of "anecdote", but the context in which we're attempting to make judgments here is the context that anecdotes, rather than data, most directly describe. The fact that people can say "I did X and I'm okay" proves that there isn't a purely deterministic relationship between X, whatever it is, and bad results, and this is a valid argument against top-down, universalized restrictions on X. > I have vague misgivings and a handful of anecdotes and not a lot of sound science. Science addresses "is" questions. There are valid "is" questions involved in this discussion, and it's entirely appropriate to rely on science to answer them. But the fundamental topic at hand here discussion is an "ought" question, not an "is" one, and "ought" questions are outside the scope of science.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

> Nonetheless, I think it's worth entertaining the hypothesis that in many ways the internet is like candy for your brain, and constant exposure might have subtle -- perhaps not yet fully recognized or appreciated -- effects on our cognition. It does, actually. Read Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows' [0], it's a pretty decent book about the subject. It also starts off with comparing our usage of the internet with the rise of reading - you know, books and the like. History lesson; humans needed to adapt their brains to be able to read attentively for longer periods of time. The book contrasts that with the ADD nature of the internet, and yet, indicates how it's actually going back to where we were before. Or just a change similar to when books became publicly accessible. tl;dr, yes there is a change, but I don't think it's necessarily good or bad; just different. And shocking / to be resisted by the older generation, just as how their parents were shocked and resisting the Beatles and similar long-haired freaks. :p [0]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750 http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/...

shortlived 13y ago

Do we need real data to know that too much porn is a bad thing? > The problem is that these are the same sorts of arguments > that have been deployed in the face of every technological > advance I agree and at the risk of sounding like my parents, I think the internet is different. Never before has their been a technology so all encompassing and so powerful (and dangerous). If I wanted to look at pictures of girls when I was a horny teen, I had the bra section of the JC Penny catalog. The jump from that to the type of online porn that exists today is pretty big. Add to the fact that online porn is so much more accessible than visiting a porno shop, it's no wonder kids can fall into it more easily.

existencebox 13y ago
But lets turn back the clock a few thousand years, where pre-teen boys were practically expected to engage not only in sexual acts/experiences, but often with those FAR older than themselves. At the risk of more unsubstantiated statements (qualifier, I spent 7 years studying latin+latin history), I feel like the amount of sexual content exposed to children in that era was FAR greater than now, even with the internet+porn, just in different media, and handled in very different cultural and social light, with much less stigma. There seems to be a lot of paranoia around this issue, but observe that there have been HUGE ranges of how humanity has handled sexual content over the last few thousand years around the globe, and generally "we've turned out ok." This is a question that answering empirically will be VERY difficult, due to the sheer complexity of the human development process and the number of confounding variables, and I think a degree of faith needs to be had in the resiliency of our species and social structure to adapt.
- coryfklein 13y ago
  I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. That exposure to hardcore porn online is okay because it's better than being raped as a child? Or it's okay because we can adapt to its negative influence and come out alright? What if I want something better than "ok" for my kids?
  - 13y ago

jdlegg 13y ago

I think the most concrete example of what you're describing is the "pattern" we saw with tobacco. Science suggested for a long time that cigarette smoking might be bad for you. As the evidence grew stronger, tobacco companies ran ads with Joe DiMaggio about how healthy their brand was[1]. Eventually the evidence was so irrefutable, and there were enough "casualties," that most reasonable people were forced to accept it. This seems like a pattern that repeats itself. It begins with anecdotal evidence, followed by a long period of scientific research, then propaganda campaigns and eventual acceptance. We're currently seeing it, about halfway through the curve, in the food industry with sugar. It's also happened previously with lead, seatbelts, asbestos, gambling, mercury, alcohol & driving, cholesterol, tanning booths, etc. And now, perhaps, it's starting on the effect of information consumption. I use the term "information consumption" because it seems to be about much more than just teenagers and their phones. [1] http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6149/6012309554_2c177196a8_z.jpg http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6149/6012309554_2c177196a8_z.j...

DanBC 13y ago
> tobacco companies ran ads with Joe DiMaggio about how healthy their brand was[1]. Tobacco companies actively engaged in a campaign of misinformation. They deliberately spread confusion about science.

Gormo 13y ago

> it's not surprising that a lot of comments are resorting to anecdotal reasoning of the form: "Well, I use the internet and I'm ok..." But this isn't an invalid argument in discussions like this. We're not looking at questions that pertain to intervene into the population aggregations here; we're talking about how we should approach the use of law to into the particulars of specific individuals' lives. "Data" may not be the plural of "anecdote", but the context in which we're attempting to make judgments here is the context that anecdotes, rather than data, most directly describe. The fact that people can say "I did X and I'm okay" proves that there isn't a purely deterministic relationship between X, whatever it is, and bad results, and this is a valid argument against top-down, universalized restrictions on X. > I have vague misgivings and a handful of anecdotes and not a lot of sound science. Science addresses "is" questions. There are valid "is" questions involved in this discussion, and it's entirely appropriate to rely on science to answer them. But the fundamental topic at hand here discussion is an "ought" question, not an "is" one, and "ought" questions are outside the scope of science.