It's not uncommon that MTV does something I can't believe, but it is rare when my incredulity is provoked by the network doing something good. That's why I was taken aback when MTV published an article on its website yesterday about the harms of porn addiction.
“Is it possible that watching adult videos is why your performance is slipping from 9 to 5?” asks writer Tess Barker in her article, “Is Watching Porn At Home Making You Perform Worse At Work?” And her answer is yes.
She accurately relates the facts of addiction: Porn triggers the release of dopamine in the brain, which can flood its reward centers and lead to a need for more extreme porn to get the same “high.” Like other forms of dependence, the search for harder and harder porn can lead to the inability to concentrate.
She also includes a video clip of Gary Wilson's TED Talk on habitual porn use. Wilson explained that porn addiction “symptoms are easily mistaken for other conditions, such as ADHD, social anxiety, depression, performance anxiety, [Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder], and so on.”
Although Barker never references it, work is not the only place porn could hurt your performance.
As of this writing, her article has already had more than 2,000 shares on Facebook.
The fact that this appeared on MTV's website is significant. MTV has been a purveyor of softcore porn for decades, from its beach programs to the Clinton-era series Undressed to Miley Cyrus' twerking. The fact that this warning was published in a mainstream pop culture outlet speaks to the fact that porn's harms have become so common place that they can no longer be ignored.
What massive reversal will come next? Will MTV start playing music again?
Click “like” if you say NO to porn!
