I was recently made aware of an 8-year-old with an addiction to pornography. I will repeat that: an 8-year-old with an addiction to pornography. In fact, I will repeat it again because I worry that we have become so desensitized that this statement will not elicit the shock and horror that it should. Recently, I was told of an 8-year-old, a small child who hasn’t even hit puberty, who is addicted to watching hardcore pornography—you know, the really vile kind that cries out to heaven.
I heard the news and I was sick. I almost cried. In fact, writing about it makes it hard for my eyes to stay dry. That poor child. His poor soul. The trials that he will face as he ages will be remarkable. He is 8, and he is already an addict. He is already spending so much time on a phone—yes, his parents have given him a smartphone at age 8—that he has developed an addiction.
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When I was growing up and heard of people having addictions, I would think of the poor souls I might see downtown who had become dependent on drugs. Or, I might think of a character I had seen in a movie or a TV show who couldn’t stop wasting money at the blackjack table or the slots. In any event, addicts, in my mind, were supposed to be adults because people who became addicted to things became addicted to sinful things that children would never be in a position to do.
Nevertheless, we now live in a time wherein children, maybe even younger than 8, are addicted to the most vile images and videos, and the addiction comes through the phone.
Understanding Addiction Related to Media
Now, I don’t know how long it takes to develop an addiction in the clinical sense, but I imagine it doesn’t happen overnight. Ultimately, an addiction is like a compulsive bad habit that is formed over time after repeated participation in an activity that elicits a pleasurable response. Now, pleasure in itself is good, hence the word pleasure, which is derived from “to please.” Being pleased is a good thing because it means something like being satisfied or content. After a good meal, we might be pleased because we are satisfied; or after a hard day’s work, we might be very pleased with the satisfactory work we have done.
However, there are pleasures that, we might say, cheat. What I mean by that is that we get the feeling of satisfaction or the pleasurable feeling but in a way that is unnatural or at least intemperate or imbalanced. Also, given our fallen nature, we often take pleasure in things that are immoral. Any parent knows this because children as young as 18 months old will take great pleasure in smacking a sibling who has annoyed them. It isn’t the smacking per se that is the pleasure but the sense of accomplishing retaliation.
Little children do not have self-control—nor do many adults, for that matter—so they cannot calibrate their response to what is perceived as an injustice, and they retaliate inappropriately. Nevertheless, the impulse to achieve justice is a good thing because justice is good, but the child simply doesn’t seek justice the right way, so he does something he shouldn’t do.
Now, what would facilitate an addiction in a small child to something so wicked as pornography?
Well, in the first place, before he has developed said addiction, he will already have associated the use of a device with the satisfaction of an impulse. And, over time, the satisfaction of that impulse will become compulsive; he will have gone from the spontaneous or infrequent titillation of a desire or longing to a state of dependency, which creates in him a compulsion.
And, what is it about phones and tablets that is so titillating for children—and adults for that matter? Well, our screen devices are objectively pleasing to behold and to use. They have gorgeous coloring in the displays, and they combine a number of senses that are primed for pleasure. They are tactile, visual, and auditory. Also, they are portals to a promise of endless entertainment, which means endless pleasure. This is how they are so different from traditional or older forms of media.
Books, for example, offer a portal into a world of pleasure, whether it be fiction or nonfiction, but they are analog and limited; a book only has what the book has, and it cannot link to other books, or videos, or music. When we read a book, we have to use our imagination and “work hard” to create our own mental picture, or to imagine the sounds being described. The use of a book is tactile in a secondary sense because we hold the book, but not much happens because of how we touch the book. We turn the page to continue reading, but we don’t move things around or cause the words to change into pictures that move.
Radio is another technology that has afforded us great pleasure, but it is limited as well. The limitations on radio, as with books, require a certain style of program to be made that focuses on the auditory sense, and, like with books, the imagination is required to make the magic happen.
Television/film was perhaps the greatest technological leap when it comes to storytelling and the sharing of information, as it engages multiple senses. However, it is the auditory and visual faculties that are engaged, and there is nothing active or tactile about the experience. So, there is still a limitation on the participation of all the senses.
Now, with screen-based activities, it is not all the senses that are engaged, but the senses of touch, sight, and hearing are all fully engaged in a way that is not possible with other types of media entertainment. And, without being crude, the use of screens for pornography consumption is also associated with illicit activities of the body, which invoke a host of other sensations that become intrinsically linked to the pleasures a device may offer.
Ultimately, there is something perhaps too pleasurable, or, we might say, pleasurable in an artificial and imbalanced way, about tactile screen devices. In addition, since no work is required like with books or the radio, the pleasure is easier to access and promises a higher and more engaged reward.
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Yes, with films and TV we do not engage the imagination like we do with radio and books, but we also don’t actively participate in the activity with the sense of touch like we do with screen devices that allow us to manipulate the pictures effortlessly, so the experience of passively watching something like TV or films doesn’t offer the full engagement of watching things or playing with things on devices that engage more of our senses. That being said, of the older media technologies, TV can often be the most problematic, even if it is not as bad as the newer ones.
We have to be honest with ourselves; we are fallen, and because of this, we often seek the path of least resistance if there is a promised carrot at the end. Is there any easier path to sensory pleasure than what is offered from a smartphone or tablet? We don’t have to get up, but we can still be involved physically; we don’t have to use our imaginations, but stories with pictures still play out in front of us; we don’t have to do anything difficult, but, with video games on these devices, we can pseudo-accomplish great feats of heroism or daring; we don’t have to interact with another living human being, but the images and activities of those human beings can be used as inspiration for autoerotic pleasure, and there are seemingly no consequences.
To put it bluntly, the immediate access to engaging, sensory pleasure is simply dangerous and wildly tempting when it comes to screen devices.
We haven’t even considered the effects on the brain that take place with repeated dopamine hits, and how, in order to accomplish a continual satisfaction for dopamine compulsion, the participation of individuals seeking pleasure in this way must become more extreme and intense in order to go beyond mere satisfaction of compulsion to the titillation of higher and more sensible pleasure.
Most grown adults cannot handle this temptation, which is why so many adults are addicted to screen pleasures. So, we cannot expect children to ever stand a chance.
