Stanford Psychologist: Technology Is Ruining a Generation of Men

Orion Jones in Big Think:

Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who became a household name after conducting the Stanford prison experiments, argues that our online culture is disproportionately harming boys, who watch more pornography, waste more time playing video games, and are increasingly bored with their sedentary office jobs.

The cause, Zimbardo explains in his new book “Man (Dis)connected: How Technology has Sabotaged What it Means to Be Male,” is biological in nature. Men have what psychologists call “single-cue arousability,” meaning one mere stimulus brings them closer to happiness, such as a naked person on a screen, when compared to women who require more complex stimuli to become aroused.

We've long wondered if the Internet is like the crack cocaine of entertainment, but talking about online addiction as a substance-abuse problem is a misleading metaphor, says Zimbardo. The Internet is not a drug because drug addiction supplies its users with more of the same experience. Arousal addiction, which the Internet does provide for, requires the addict to always receive new stimulation.

More here.