Supernormal stimuli and behavioural addiction? Really now?

Status of TF:

And now for something slightly different. What do you think about animals, including humans, having "hardwired" neural pathways and behaviors? Here's a very interesting short essay/comic on "supernormal stimulation" that attempts to explain why humans tend to indulge in or even become addicted to things like junk food, the internet and pornography. Is there be a disconnect between creation and evolution in explaining these behaviors? Heck, there's even a quotation from C.S. Lewis towards the end on fighting temptation.

Sparring Mind : Supernormal Stimuli: This is Your Brain on Porn, Junk Food, and the Internet
by Gregory Ciotti
http://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal-stimuli/

Thoughts?

[One exchange of words left out]

HGL:

Who says internet (or "junk food" even) is comparable to porn?

One cannot speak of internet as an addiction. Those who do are forgetting what words really mean in medicine.

One cannot speak of internet as a temptation that is forgetting who is to judge what is sin. "Thous shalt not use internet" is not a commandment, and neither is "thou shalt use internet if at all only little".

It is about communication, and human communication is not an addiction or temptation, it can be a temptation because of content, but not because of format (excepting nudity outside marriage).

TF:

Hi Hans-Georg,

\\Who says internet (or "junk food" even) is comparable to porn?//

The article I posted, as they qualify as "supernormal stimuli." They're stimulating different neural and behavioral pathways, but the author is arguing that they can have very similar effects.

\\One cannot speak of internet as an addiction. Those who do are forgetting what words really mean in medicine.//

It's currently listed in the appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, tagged for "further study." Not official an addiction yet, but it's obviously about as new as you can get so there's very little research on it.

Wikipedia : Internet Addiction Disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder

\\One cannot speak of internet as a temptation that is forgetting who is to judge what is sin. "Thous shalt not use internet" is not a commandment, and neither is "thou shalt use internet if at all only little".//

I suppose the "sinful" nature of the examples in the article would depend on if you lump them into "sloth, gluttony, and lust" of the "deadly sins" for the internet, junk food, and pornography.

\\It is about communication, and human communication is not an addiction or temptation, it can be a temptation because of content, but not because of format //

Well, the article certainly lists several "harmful" side effects of internet usage, though it's not aimed to address sin.

HGL:

Starting to read article and looking at definition of "supernormal stimuli":

" supernormal stimuli, a term evolutionary biologists use to describe any stimulus that elicits a response stronger than the stimulus for which it evolved"

Evolutionary biologists? Hullo! We are NOT evolved. We are created. And Our Creator knew perfectly well Internet was coming through us.

THEN stimulating a neural and behavioural pathway is not a thing that is bad. It is not a thing that is morally good either. It is a physical good for the behaviour and is not physically bad for the person unless it leads into physical and moral harm. The problem with porn is not the neural pathway per se as such - you get that with prayer too - but the fact that it is directed to the moral damage of lust. That is not so with internet or so called junk food.

As to "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", you can very well nickname it the Devil's Bible. Alcohol and heroine give addictions, and you do not need to study the Devil's Bible for that.

Internet is not a supernormal stimulus in the sense given by the article. I am not for porn. The supercute is used in manga - to bad or good use depending on the moral the mangaka confers with his story. Facebook is not super anything. Except when one comes when every friend is online and there come too many notifications : then notifications clicking are super annoying. It is reason, and the real human pleasure of friendship which keeps people on FB who would otherwise flee it due to overmany notifications. Of course everyone I like on, FB is someone I think I would like in real life too. Sometimes I come across people on FB who annoy me, and who in real life I might have shunned - and I still have a discussion with them, because I know (or at worst feel I know) my intercourse with them is limited to that discussion. As human communication, FB is rather a SUB-normal stimulus in that way. Though I would ditch the category stimulus altogether and call FB what it is: human communication.

As to the expression "behavioural addiction", better ditch it. There is a real word for it, and it is habit. Habits are not a medical condition as long as they are habits and not medical addictions (alcohol, heroine). Therefore, habits are not the domain for doctors, but rather for moralists to judge, and these in turn have to turn to the Bible and not to the Devil's Bible (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in misdirected awe for shrinks as if they were medical experts on the matters.