The Brutal Reality For Most Men Today (& how to fix it) - Dr K HealthyGamer - #1151

Chris Williamson (0:00)

People of the UK and Ireland, if you're coming to my live shows this October, there is a chance that your story could end up on stage. Worst first dates, problems that you need solved by me, you will not believe that this happens stories, and much more. I'm going to be reacting to my favorites live, plus doing a Q&A where you can ask me about relationships, careers, existential crises, or whatever questionable life decision you're currently considering. I've spent over a year building brand new stories and ideas, and it is hands down the best thing I've ever put on stage. You can get your tickets now at chriswilliamson.live.

Can you look at this chart for me?

Dr K (0:33)

Yeah, sure.

Chris Williamson (0:34)

One in eight young men watch porn, gamble, and play video games every day or more. Almost one in four gamble daily, more than one in four use porn daily, and only 26% do none of them. What do you make of that?

Dr K (0:50)

Oh, what do you make of that?

Chris Williamson (0:53)

What? The issue here is about once a day or more often.

We don't know what the life of people that are doing this are like. We don't know what the lives of them are like. Is this compulsion? Do they wish that they could do it less? Is this something that borders on an addiction or something that's guiding their life, taking over their life? Or is this just a natural response to a world that's maybe been tapped on meaning and this is a good coping strategy for 74 percent of men to get through? I don't know, but you work on this much more than me. So you can probably see through the headline a little bit more deeply.

Dr K (1:37)

Yeah. So I think the answer is yes.

Chris Williamson (1:40)

Brilliant. Thanks for coming everybody.

Dr K (1:42)

Yeah.

So is it a compulsion? Yes. Is it a coping strategy? Yes. Are people's lives devoid of meaning? Yes. Is technology getting addictive? Yes. So the first thing that I want to kind of point out here is that there are three things, right? Gambling, pornography, video games. So generally speaking, when you see multiple overlapping things, they tend to have a shared etiology, right? So these are symptoms. Sure, they have their own diagnostic criteria and things like that. But I think what this is, what men are jerking off gambling and playing video games, yes, this is correct.

Chris Williamson (2:20)

Yes.

Dr K (2:22)

And to me, if you look at sort of things from an addictive perspective, so all three of these activities are addictive, what are the, what's the core feature of addiction? Something that gives you pleasure and takes away pain. So all of these three things do that. So anytime you're looking at compulsive behavior, this is at the root of it. So then the question becomes, what is pleasurable about these things? And more importantly, what is the pain that's being taken away? So oftentimes, I think there's a big kind of misemphasis on addiction. When people talk about addiction, they talk about dopamine predominantly.

But if you look at an addiction, addiction has three stages. In the first stage of your addiction, it gives you pleasure and it takes away pain.

But then what happens is we develop tolerance to the pleasure. So if you ask most people who gamble, play video games or watch pornography, they won't say that this is a huge source of pleasure.

So prior to being addicted, you can say, oh man, this weekend is coming around. I'm going to play lots of video games. It's going to be great. But as you progress into this, people aren't looking forward to, they're like, man, I can't wait till I have vacation at the end of the month, and I'm going to just jerk off a whole lot, and I'm going to go to Mexico, and I'm going to take a laptop. Pathologically fap. I'm gooning all day. It's a goon holiday. There are people who goon, right? We can get to the psychology of that, which is fascinating. So I think this is largely a symptom or a manifestation of a deeper problem.

And I think that we just have, depending on what the specifics of your psychology and your neuroscience is, you will end up in one of those quadrants. And the fascinating thing is we're getting to the point in research where we know what the defining features of each of those quadrants are.

Chris Williamson (4:19)

Ooh, tell me, tell me more.

Dr K (4:21)

So pick one to start.

Chris Williamson (4:25)