Children and teenagers who are exposed to pornography online are more likely to develop an addiction to smut than adults, according to researchers.
Teens young brains are “more wired for pleasure and so are more susceptible to fall prey to porn addiction because their brains release higher dosages of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that is associated with pleasurable feelings, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Sexual activity is known to stimulate the brain by releasing an excess dose of dopamine. In young people whose brains are particularly sensitive to overstimulation, exposure to porn could lead the brain to seek out the pleasurable dose in a compulsive manner.
Researchers have also found that repeated exposure to pornography makes whose who are “predisposed toward aggressive sexual behavior” more than four times more likely to display greater levels of sexual violence than their peers who consumed porn less frequently.
Another major study also found that young men who reported compulsive consumption of pornography had brain activity that mirrored those of drug addicts who were shown photographs of narcotics.
Meanwhile, a separate study found that some 42% of kids between the ages of 10 and 17 will have been exposed to pornographic material sometime during the previous 12 months.
Researchers warn that this prolonged exposure to pornography at such a young age could distort teens’ views on sex.
Billie Eilish, the 20-year-old Grammy Award-winning singer, has said that he believes a porn habit that he first developed at the age of 11 has “destroyed my brain.”
“I think porn is a disgrace. I used to watch a lot of porn, to be honest. I started watching porn when I was, like, 11,” Eilish told Howard Stern of SiriusXM Radio last year.
Eilish also admitted that she began watching more and more graphic types of pornography, which warped her ideas about sex and relationships.
“It got to a point where I couldn’t watch anything else unless it was violent, I didn’t think it was attractive,” she confessed.
Experts warn that parents and educators should refrain from inducing guilt or shame in teens by scolding them for watching porn.
A survey conducted by Los Angeles-based psychologist Nicole Prause found that nearly one in three young adult men who took part in a porn-abstinence program reported feeling suicidal after relapsing.
“If we shut down conversations and say, ‘Don’t watch porn, and if you do, it’s an addiction and it will rot your brain,’ that’s terrifying,” Prause told the Journal.
“It’s some of the messaging that’s making it worse.”
Experts recommend that parents filter explicit content on their kids’ devices. Apple offers a “Content and Privacy Restrictions” option in the “Screen Time” section of the settings menu on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch devices.
This allows parents to block “adult websites” from the devices.
Android-operated devices also offer content restrictions that can be activated by going to the Google Play Store and selecting “Parental controls.”