The Boredom Crisis and its Solution

How having nothing to do leads to watching pornography, jerking-off and what to do against it.

Call me crazy, but I bet all of my (personal) experience that at least 50% of the time you watch porn or masturbate is because you are bored.

If this is not true for you, I would not like to be in your position, as free time must be very scarce. However, for most guys with an addiction, this description is quite accurate. Boredom is one of the root causes of masturbating and watching porn. It also happens to play a major role in the ever-growing procrastination problem. But one after another.

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People aged 24 and younger spend around 6 hours on their phones daily. Some even up to 10 hours. That is, 3/5 of their waking hours! Older people tend to spend a little less time being online. Nontheless, most of them refer to themselves as stressed, and feel like having little time day by day. That is living in a void.

Why am I talking about this? Because pornography, especially in combination with masturbation, is a void filler. A few weeks ago, I talked about the loneliness crisis, or rather epidemic, especially affecting young men. It is this demographic group spending by far the most time online. By no surprise, the exact same group has the most self-proclaimed porn addicts. Do you think this is a coincidence? Me neither.

There are two different approaches to this evident problem, which I think both hold truth to them. One path looks at the factors of boredom and loneliness separately. The second method, which I will cover today, combines them. While at first glance this may seem lazy, it is necessary to get a broader picture. In science, approaches like this are called multivariate analysis.

The problem

If there is no sports, no friends, and little going out in your life (meaning loneliness), chances are your life is boring. Every day just feels the same. Bored, you end up watching a movie you have seen before, escape to social media, or, in the worst case, end up watching pornography. This is how the void I was talking about looks like.

Why do we cope with it like that? Because the majority of us have unlearned how to deal with boredom, or rather free time, other than by distracting ourselfs. Scrolling on social media requires virtually no effort and offers cheaper dopamine than reading, writing, or any similar activity people did decades ago when they were bored. The problem, however, is that pornography offers even more dopamine than Instagram or Snapchat. And there is another, maybe more severe issue.

Analyzing what happens in the body after an ejaculation, scientists found a recession in testosterone levels, a massive release of oxytocin, paired with a sharp decline in dopamine levels aswell as a 400% rise in prolactin. Both the decline in dopamine and testosterone, but also something referred to as parasympathetic activation (body switching from fight-or-flight mode to rest mode), lead to low energy levels, no motivation, and fatigue. That is why many masturbate when they cannot sleep. Also, the surge in prolactin, spiking immediately after ejaculation, blocks dopamine and makes you feel drowsy. And these are only a few of the neurochemical processes happening in your body. What became evident already is that after jerking off, you feel relaxed, tired, and lethargic. Why is this a problem, you may ask?

Because you are draining yourself of your valuable energy and motivation.

This matters in the broader context of boredom too, because naturally, you will feel the need to do something, to be creative, to cope with being bored. This can be unsettling for many. Masturbation kills this urge to be productive immediately through a biochemical cocktail. If this is your go-to response to boredom, you are never going to feel energized enough to pursue something. This is concerning.

The solution

Leaving out deeper individual psychological explanations, porn consumption in this case is the effect, not the cause. But if you do not eliminate the root cause (boredom), the effect (porn & jerking off) will be impossible to eradicate. The solution? Beating boredom.

This really really could be anything, from a new sport to making music. It could be socializing to spend less time alone waiting for dopamine spikes, or teaching yourself karate techniques. Drawing a self-portrait you cannot wait to work on when you get home from school, or building a start-up in every spare minute you have.

Just stop spending hour after hour on your phone, seeking content you forget a few seconds later, wasting your life. And, for distinction, I am not saying you should always be occupied with something and never get bored. You should. But in a healthy way. To think about something you know you need to figure out, to recapitulate why you had another argument with your friends, or just to give your brain a grasp to breathe, to resort itself again. Trust me, you are going to thank yourself later.