Porn addiction measured by new test from psychologists
- Four per cent of people who watch porn have an addiction, claim researchers
- They have devised a five-minute test to you find out if you’re a porn addict
- Porn obsession is believed to affect the brain in a similar way to drug addiction
Daisy Dunne For Mailonline
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More than 4.6 billion hours of online pornography was watched on Pornhub alone last year, accounting for 12.5 videos for every person on Earth.
But researchers have revealed that four per cent of users are addicted to watching porn.
They have devised a five-minute test to help you find out if they have a ‘problematic’ relationship with online pornography.
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Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary found that four percent of porn users have an unhealthy addiction (stock image)
The test asks participants to reflect on how important porn is to their daily life, and how they would feel if they were prevented from watching it.
‘We identified an optimal cutoff to distinguish between problematic and nonproblematic pornography users,’ the psychologists from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary said in a research paper.
‘The PPCS is a multidimensional scale of problematic pornography use with a strong theoretical basis that also has strong psychometric properties in terms of factor structure and reliability.’
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ARE YOU ADDICTED TO PORN? TAKE THE TEST
Answer the 17 questions below, rating them by how much you feel they apply to you from 1 to 7, where:1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = occasionally, 4 = sometimes, 5 = often, 6 = very often, 7 = all the time.
1. I felt that porn is an important part of my life.
2. I used porn to restore the tranquillity of my feelings.
3. I felt porn caused problems in my sexual life
4. I felt that I had to watch more and more porn for satisfaction.
5. I unsuccessfully tried to reduce the amount of porn I watch.
6. I became stressed when something prevented me from watching porn.
7. I thought about how good it would be to watch porn.
8. Watching porn got rid of my negative feelings.
9. Watching porn prevented me from bringing out the best in me.
10. I felt that I needed more and more porn in order to satisfy my needs.
11. When I vowed not to watch porn any more, I could only do it for a short period of time.
12. I became agitated when I was unable to watch porn.
13. I continually planned when to watch porn.
14. I released my tension by watching porn.
15. I gradually watched more ‘extreme’ porn, because the porn I watched before was less satisfying.
16. I resisted watching porn for only a little while before I relapsed.
17. I missed porn greatly when I didn’t watch it for a while.
Add the scores for all the questions together. A score of 76 or higher suggests problematic levels of pornography use.
A similar study by researchers at the Université Laval in Quebec found that porn users fall into three categories, which includes recreational, distressed or compulsive
THE THREE TYPES OF PORN USER
Recreational: Watched an average of 24 minutes a week.
This group scored low with compulsivity, intensity of efforts to access pornography.
And it was mostly women and people in relationships.
Distressed: Watched an average of 17 minutes a week.
However, watching pornographic content was found to cause these individuals emotional stress.
Compulsive: Watched an average of 110 minutes a week and was mostly men.
This groups’ behavior may be a result of compulsive sexuality that includes avoidance of sexual interactions with a partner.
A similar study by researchers at the Université Laval in Quebec found that porn users fall into three categories, which includes recreational, distressed or compulsive.
They found that around 12 per cent of porn users could be considered ‘compulsive’.
This group ‘was characterised by high scores on compulsivity to pornography and intensity of efforts to access pornography and moderate scores on emotional distress associated with pornography use’.
‘The compulsive profile consisted of a larger proportion of men who spent the most time using pornography (ie, mean ¼ 110 minutes weekly),’ researches shared in the study.
‘They reported the highest level of compulsivity to pornography, intensity of efforts to access sexual material, and higher emotional distress associated with pornography use.’
Lit-up: The brain scans of compulsive porn users (pictured bottom), show more pronounced stimulation when watching x-rated material when compared to those not addicted (pictured top)
A previous study found compulsive users of porn show the same signs of addiction in their brain as those hooked on booze or drugs.
Dr Valerie Voon, a Cambridge University neuroscientist specialising in addictions, studied 19 self-confessed compulsive pornography users.
The men, aged 19 to 34, had tried and failed to break their habit and had lost relationships and jobs as a result.
All fed their habit using online porn. When they were shown erotic video clips, a part of their brains lit up called the ventral striatum.
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