986: Porn | Skeptical Sunday

986: Porn | Skeptical Sunday

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I am with Skeptical Sunday co-host Michael Regilio, whose name is impossible to spell. Good luck finding him on Instagram. On the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

[00:00:23] Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers. On Sundays, though we do skeptical Sunday, we're a rotating guest co-host, and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions.

[00:00:43] I. Topics such as Why tipping, makes no sense Astrology, the death industry, or weddings. And if you're new to the show or you wanna tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode Starter Packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic to help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show.

[00:00:59] Topics like Persuasion influenced China, North Korea, crime, and Cults and more. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, sexually explicit content, adult entertainment, smut is a word I feel like needs to come back. Triple X or just XXX, I don't know how you would say that.

[00:01:19] Porn, whatever you call it. There's no getting around how ubiquitous porn is today. And today's porn uses high speed internet to create an intense experience or so I have heard, and the negative effects of today's pornography are not always anticipated by the user or necessarily even considered by the user.

[00:01:35] Porn and porn flicks. They don't come with warning labels. Well, they used to, but viewing pornography impact relationships work or self-care is the impact worse than society wants to admit. Comedian and porn aficionado, Michael Lio Ha is here to talk about the, uh, the ins and outs of porn. Okay.

[00:01:55] Michael Regilio: Uh, for the record, uh, Jordan, uh, ad-lib the porn aficionado.

[00:01:59] Although researching this episode, I might well be, hi Jordan. Let's talk specifically, okay. About high speed internet porn. All right. This is not your father's porn. Mm. High mm-Hmm. High speed Internet access has changed the way porn is viewed while changing our brain's wiring. It is necessary to look at the science behind pornography

[00:02:20] Jordan Harbinger: porn science.

[00:02:21] Okay, that sounds like a movie Starring Anthony Michael Hall. By the way, your, the phrase your father's porn is something I'd rather just never, ever hear again, by the way. That's, no,

[00:02:31] Michael Regilio: thank you. Okay.

[00:02:31] Jordan Harbinger: Alright.

[00:02:32] Michael Regilio: Well it might come up again, but ha, the science behind porn is of course neuroscience. And neuroscience shows that high speed porn changes the way our brain functions and instills addictive traits.

[00:02:44] But here's the

[00:02:44] Jordan Harbinger: thing, porn has always been around. You and I were kind of talking at the top of the show. Well, it's not just porn. It's high speed internet porn. And I'm thinking like, okay, is dial up porn, is it that much worse or better? VHS porn, this is nothing new. Playboys, wet playboys in the forest.

[00:02:59] Michael Regilio: Right. Okay. Look, although porn is nothing new, there is no comparing today's porn to anything that existed before. This isn't even your older cousin's porn. Okay. See,

[00:03:09] Jordan Harbinger: that's more like it. That's some porn I can get behind that doesn't make me have shivers and, you know, nightmares while I'm awake. I understand.

[00:03:17] Michael Regilio: Okay. So high speed internet porn is a recent phenomenon that didn't exist until around 20 years ago. Porn is more accessible and more extreme than ever before. These few rain soaked centerfold magazines that I, and apparently you found in the park as a teenager are nothing compared to the hardcore high def videos that everyone has access to today.

[00:03:39] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, so I was hinting at the thing that I, it's like a code word that all guys who are probably 30, 40 years old know is that there are rain soaked, hopefully rain soaked magazines in the woods, stuffed in a stump at the BMX track that your parents have never been to. And my friends and I would find them and say, I think that's a boob.

[00:03:59] And the nip should be like where that torn sort of leaf dried on there and we can't get it off without ruining it. Can we even know how many people watch porn on a regular basis? It's not something people love to talk about generally, except for right now. Apparently.

[00:04:12] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Well it that's true. But the national in.

[00:04:15] Of health reports that 91% of men and 60% of women have viewed porn within the last month. Other statistics vary, but it's hard to get honest feedback. There's that old joke, nine outta 10 guys admit to masturbating, and the 10th one is a liar. Mm-Hmm. Well, that might just be the case here with who is admitting to their porn habits.

[00:04:32] So we

[00:04:32] Jordan Harbinger: just don't know. So those stats, they sound high. Maybe not for guys. Maybe 91% sounds accurate for It does surprise me. The percentage for women is that high. I would say if you quizzed me on that, I'd say low double digits or even single digits, because a lot of women I know would never admit, I'll put it that way, to watching porn.

[00:04:51] Michael Regilio: True. And the numbers going up and. Evolutionary biologist Thomas Junker believes the rise in females who view HighSpeed porn is because more content is now being made for women. Mm. Okay, so the numbers are adding up. And by the way, the top five porn sites account for over 6 billion visits per month. No doubt.

[00:05:10] Some of those visitors are definitely

[00:05:12] Jordan Harbinger: women, just statistically speaking. I am, I'm curious what the difference is between porn for men and women. I'm, I'm gonna have to somehow figure out how to view porn on the internet. I, uh, man, that's gonna be some research. Wow, over 6 billion served. There must be a lot of repeat users in this industry.

[00:05:28] Michael Regilio: Okay? Yes, those numbers do account for many chronic porn users. There is hesitation to label them porn addicts, but neuroscientists see no difference in brain function between porn use and other addictive things like drugs. Many psychologists don't agree and say that porn addiction doesn't exist while others have a more fuzzy take.

[00:05:46] It's a debate and I don't fully understand it, so I'm just gonna go with the scientists. I'm gonna say if it walks like an addiction and talks like an addiction, it's an addiction. Addiction or not? What is going on here?

[00:05:56] Jordan Harbinger: That's a lot of crispy socks, Michael. Wow. I wonder how many people even get that.

[00:06:03] Like women are like, oh,

[00:06:05] Michael Regilio: crispy socks. You Sadly, I think just about everybody gets it. 'cause that's stereotypes that are out and I've Yeah, that's true. The fact of the matter, is it just all. Starts with evolutionary desires. For billions of years, the top priority for all living things has been reproduction.

[00:06:18] Now, imagine the environment in which humans evolved. Studies of the earliest human species population show that there was about one person per square mile. So a dude walking the planes of Africa a hundred thousand years ago or so had very few opportunities to interact and meet. Evolution made sure he took every opportunity available.

[00:06:37] The Horst people passed along the most DNA, and in order to maximize reproduction rates, men evolved to become super aroused by the prospect of a new make to spread as much sperm as possible.

[00:06:50] Jordan Harbinger: That actually makes a ton of sense. Evolutionarily speaking, and I love that. The source for this, or one of the sources for this is per square mile.com, which I can only imagine.

[00:07:00] Someone's like, wait, what happens? If we quickly need to know how many people there were per square mile a hundred thousand years ago, I need to make a website that calculates this in a flesh.

[00:07:10] Michael Regilio: Yeah,

[00:07:11] Jordan Harbinger: it sounds like Graduate student project. It does like an intern at a think tank. So we're ancestors of the Horniest humans, which is kind of funny.

[00:07:19] And also I. That's not what you learn in Sunday school or whatever.

[00:07:24] Michael Regilio: Yeah. And high speed internet porn hacks these desires and sends them into overdrive. Our brain is telling us we're doing a good thing when we watch porn because the potential for new mates seems limitless.

[00:07:35] Jordan Harbinger: I know this isn't your department necessarily, but it sounds like you're saying humans are not usually monogamous kind of by design.

[00:07:42] At least sexually monogamous by design.

[00:07:44] Michael Regilio: All living things are built to reproduce. Certain species are more monogamous than others. When a gray wolf, alpha male picks its mate, that's for life. They are nature's power Couple, many other species are the same. Penguins, albatross, and our national bird, bald eagles mate for life.

[00:07:59] Yeah, of course they do. Good old American family values. Right. But there are animals like Bonobos who are just constantly having sex parties. Humans seem to be a combination of those extremes. And by the way, Jordan, I've been to a few bonobo parties, not that great.

[00:08:16] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. I, I'm not sure how you scored an invite to those, but I don't really need details.

[00:08:21] I, it sounds like a lot of feces tossing. So, porn. Porn is, speaking of which porn is stimulating our most primal desires. How is it affecting our brain? Is there a science that says like, Hey, this is, this rots your brain like the hip hop and jazz music once was thought to do?

[00:08:36] Michael Regilio: One of the most powerful things in our brains is the tremendous dopamine system.

[00:08:40] The dopamine system motivates us to do everything we need to do to survive, like eat, sleep, and reproduce. And when it comes to reproduction, the dopamine system doesn't leave anything to chance. So even if there's a slight chance of mating, our brains give us a dopamine boost to motivate us to go for it.

[00:08:56] Jordan Harbinger: Ah, okay. So. Are we, and again, this might be a little outside the research, but are we motivated to go for sex more than other desires? You know, when you hear those rat experiments, like the rat went for the cocaine water instead of food, it's like, well, surprise, surprise. But what takes precedence food or sex or shelter or sex scissor, like a hierarchy

[00:09:15] Michael Regilio: here that gets messed up?

[00:09:16] Well, let's just say studies show that our dopamine production for sex is two times what it is for food. Great dieting idea, the porn diet, oh God, that the book writes itself. And look, the fact of the matter is dopamine is the door to addiction. And here's the thing. Dopamine isn't just the pleasure molecule.

[00:09:35] No, it's the molecule that controls wanting cravings. And. Guides you to avoid those unpleasant feelings. The purpose of dopamine is to motivate you to seek behavior that produces more dopamine.

[00:09:47] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, who doesn't love food? And, and to two x that sign me up. So let me guess. The dopamine machine can't tell the difference between high speed internet porn and a real world experience, or, or there's some fuzzy stuff going on there.

[00:10:01] Michael Regilio: No, it's actually just the opposite. It can tell the difference, and the dopamine is motivating people to choose high speed porn over the real world. Oh, there is more reward from high speed porn than sex with a single partner because there are diminishing returns of dopamine with the same partner. High speed internet porn offers.

[00:10:20] Endless opportunities to simulate a new mate.

[00:10:24] Jordan Harbinger: Uh, so it's the novelty thing going on here. And, and by the way, that sounds like the slogan for a porn site Simulate a mate. It makes sense though. I can't imagine that almost anybody in real life has more options for real life mates than they do internet simulated mates.

[00:10:39] And here's, look at Tom Brady, right? It's like, well, that guy can walk out the door, and people are like doing weird gymnastics over tables to get to him. And yet, uh, he's in his bed laying down. He is. Got his phone in his hand. Like it's still easier Yeah. For

[00:10:52] Michael Regilio: somebody like that. It's true. I mean, maybe that should be the catchphrase for one of those sites, more sex than Tom Brady after the FTX

[00:10:59] Jordan Harbinger: thing.

[00:10:59] He might not be down for any more website promos. Yeah. But then again, it can't go any worse than the FTX thing, so a porn site endorsement might actually be a good. Way to clean his brand up a little bit. Yeah. At least, at least porn is real,

[00:11:10] Michael Regilio: right? True. That this is the underlying promise of porn and high speed porn delivers that people are hacking this response and getting a dopamine kick for a new partner every few seconds.

[00:11:21] It's pleasure on steroids,

[00:11:23] Jordan Harbinger: pleasure on dopamine, anyway, I suppose and, and now young guys. I've heard Scott Galloway say this and I, I don't remember if it was on my show 'cause he's been on a few times or other show, but he said, now young guys basically can have more simulated partners in one lonely afternoon than most men of the previous generations have had in their entire lives.

[00:11:41] Michael Regilio: Yeah. And scientists use dopamine to measure the addictive potential of an experience. A 2019 study in Australia showed porn to subjects and measured a dopamine spike at the initial viewing. The more the subject watched the same porn, the less dopamine they released. When the researchers showed them a new porn film, the researchers said their brains and bone sprang to attention again.

[00:12:03] Jordan Harbinger: Oof. Well, that does explain the never ending new content on porn sites or so I've heard. I guess you don't rewatch your favorite ones like you do old Seinfeld episodes. Rarely do I watch Seinfeld for, uh, for sexual content.

[00:12:17] Michael Regilio: There was the episode with Elaine's nipple that, uh, I re-watched several times.

[00:12:21] Can't see it. Can't see it. All right. Look, it's not just the sexual content, but the novelty that sends dopamine skyrocketing, like you just hinted at earlier. In 30 minutes, you can see more members of the opposite sex erotically displaying themselves than the total number of other mostly closed humans, our ancestors who could see during their entire lifetime.

[00:12:41] This is all new to the human experience, and it's the frequency of dopamine spikes that cause addiction. Everyday things become boring compared to the nonstop dopamine show. A human gets in front of their laptop touching. Mm-hmm. Well. The

[00:12:57] Jordan Harbinger: top of their lap. Thank you. Yes. It's not just a laptop though, it's any screen, right?

[00:13:01] Are we including phones And although desktop porn seems so comically antiquated and quaint, I have to imagine this includes phones because again, from what I've heard from friends, I. Most of their porn habits happen to be through their handheld devices while they're handholding their other devices.

[00:13:20] Michael Regilio: I

[00:13:20] Jordan Harbinger: knew you were

[00:13:21] Michael Regilio: gonna go for that one.

[00:13:21] Look, the fact of the matter for the porn addict, it's not even about the phone or the screen. You don't have to be in front of a screen to be affected by porn use. It's also the things that. Trigger people to go watch porn. Just seeing a woman in a bikini while driving down the street can, can create a strong craving for internet porn end users.

[00:13:39] Jordan Harbinger: I don't know why that's funny. 'cause I guess where I'm driving, there's nobody who's just hanging out in a bikini, but dudes just see a woman in a bikini on the beach theoretically or whatever, and it makes them want to just go home. Bust out the laptop and then not actually engage with the woman in the bikini, but go straight home and bust up PornHub or whatever.

[00:13:56] Okay, now

[00:13:57] Michael Regilio: you get it. It's not surprising that high speed porn has similar effects on the brain as narcotics. Daniel Lieberman points out in his book The Story of the Human Body, he. The sweetest thing an ancient hunter gatherer could find was probably a piece of fruit about as sweet as a modern day carrot, huh?

[00:14:12] Now you can buy a pound of sugar for a few bucks. Farmers in the Andes chew coca leaves for a mild boost in energy extract that energy boosting power, and you wind up with the highly addictive cocaine. It's like we're a little too smart for our own good. We've conquered survival faster than our brains can process.

[00:14:30] We learned how to exploit the programming that paired survival and reproduction with pleasure. With a few taps on our phone, we have unfiltered pleasure, completely separated from its original purpose of survival and reproduction.

[00:14:42] Jordan Harbinger: That does make a lot of sense, although I have to kind of call BS on the carrot thing.

[00:14:47] What about berries? Is this guy just gonna ignore the fact that fruit has existed since the dawn of. Time, theoretically. How is a carrot, the sweetest thing? That's around where like an apple, which is not gonna be a rare thing, is everywhere and so are raspberries. They're grow like weeds. And the Bible says apples have been around since the beginning, so, so there you go.

[00:15:06] There you go buddy. Check, check mate. Yeah. Scientist. Yeah, I don't know about that, but I, I get where he's going with it. And also the whole coa leaf thing makes sense. And. Extracting things from nature and then turning them into crazy. I mean, even all kinds of high fructose corn syrup would be a good example.

[00:15:23] Yeah, exactly. It's just we're refining everything and then it goes straight into your veins and it's like, wait, you were supposed to have a 1% diluted version of this and you were supposed to absorb it a hundred times slower, and now you're shooting it up or smoking it. I would imagine the addiction worsens when things like a VR headset are used.

[00:15:40] I know that's sort of primitive tech, but it's so new. It makes me get vertigo and wanna barf instead of, you know, simulate much of anything. But I can only imagine that's gonna make things worse.

[00:15:48] Michael Regilio: Yeah. vr, I mean, VR is relatively new and it is being studied. Researchers at Newcastle University in the UK have pointed out that VR changes the experience of porn.

[00:15:57] A user goes from detached observer to virtual participant.

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[00:18:25] Now back to Skeptical Sunday. I almost feel, and this is a tangent that I won't go on, but I almost feel like that's better versus watching random people get after it. At least you're kind of like, somehow being involved seems more help. Well, now, I don't know, eh, I'll leave it to the scientists. Continue. I mean, it's getting a little holodeck and, I don't know, it's getting a little her, uh, yeah.

[00:18:44] Michael Regilio: With Joaquin

[00:18:45] Jordan Harbinger: Phoenix

[00:18:45] Michael Regilio: and, and Scargo. Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. I mean, we might just reach the point where somebody goes home, puts on their headset and spends the evening with their girlfriend. I don't know. I mean, sure. It's just not conclusive either way. Yeah. Better than shooting up a shopping mall if you're like one of those violent incel.

[00:19:00] But that's another, that's another show. It's a good point. I'm, I'm convinced that there could be a correlation there too. Look, I. There's no doubt the VR adds to the dopamine kick, and any addict will tell you the constant dopamine spikes come with a price. When we slam the pleasure center of the brain with that much dopamine, the receptor shut down.

[00:19:18] So to get the same high users need more and more porn. It's not unlike gambling in drugs, anything that gives us the sweet, sweet dopamine rush. This dopamine cycle is a universal symptom of addiction, and this is exactly what scientists see in the chemistry of the minds of high speed porn users. Hmm.

[00:19:35] Behavioral addiction causes the same dopamine responses as in substance addiction,

[00:19:41] Jordan Harbinger: so isn't then high speed internet addictive itself. Does surfing the web itself boost us with dopamine? Because when I first discovered the internet as a kid. This wasn't even like clicking on colored banners. This is navigating using a keyboard and a black and white screen.

[00:19:56] I was beyond addicted to it as a kid. It was wild, and all I really had access to were certain academic papers and like crappy chat rooms that were mostly inactive, that were about computers. But it still was like the coolest thing that I'd ever seen in my life. And this again, no pictures, not even a color screen at that point.

[00:20:16] Michael Regilio: Mm-Hmm. I mean, of course, yes. The internet itself can be very addicting. We know that even if you're just looking at innocent content. I myself have sacrificed valuable time with my family to watch way too many human beatbox videos. Seems

[00:20:30] Jordan Harbinger: worth it. I'm more of a doctor pimple popper. Whistling Diesel video guy?

[00:20:35] No.

[00:20:35] Michael Regilio: Okay. I, I have some idea of what the pimple Popper thing is, and I will say that if it was around when I was 15, I would've been a fucking star. Okay,

[00:20:45] Jordan Harbinger: but what is Whistling Diesel? So my kid wants, Jaden always likes watching videos before we go to sleep. And it's like he just wants to watch one video with that.

[00:20:54] And he always wants to watch car videos. And this guy whistling Diesel is like this idiot. And by idiot, I mean brilliantly funny guy who's good at playing dumb, but is a mechanical genius. And what he'll do is he'll take, he'll buy like a Hellcat sports car. Which is kind of like a souped up charger Mustang thing, and he'll put those Amish wagon wheels on it and he'll burn it out and drive it through town and, or he'll get like a monster truck and drive it in water.

[00:21:19] And everyone's calling the, the cops are everywhere and there's helicopters and he is like, well, we checked, this is actually legal. But they don't like it. It's dumb. But you know, there's a reason he gets 23 million views on a video because it's amazingly fun and funny and seemingly mostly innocent. Wow.

[00:21:34] I don't know how we got on this, but yeah. The, the videos that we see online on TikTok that are not porny, I. A lot of them are also kind of addicting. I'm not addicted to whistling diesel, but you see outrage content or just nonsense conspiracy stuff. There's gotta be an addiction element to that stuff.

[00:21:49] 'cause otherwise it's, I mean, it is destroying people's lives and relationships and people choose that over like their family. I

[00:21:55] Michael Regilio: know. I mean, that's another episode altogether. Yeah. That I've had friendships fall apart over this stuff. But look, there's a lot to say about internet addiction. There's no doubt, high speed porn makes it worse.

[00:22:05] Viewing porn is associated with the erosion of the prefrontal cortex, which drives things again, like our impulse control and willpower. When you combine the already addictive nature of the internet with the fact that our brains make us super motivated by anything sexual, you see how high speed porn can have such negative a.

[00:22:22] Effects.

[00:22:23] Jordan Harbinger: So you said erodes the prefrontal cortex. Tell me more about that, because that sounds like one of those things you read in a science article and it's like, well, it doesn't actually erode and it's not actually the prefrontal cortex and

[00:22:34] Michael Regilio: it's not true at all. It's a good question, and I looked into that one a lot, and I guess right now where the science is, that's no causal link that is conclusive.

[00:22:42] But there is no doubt from dozens of studies that erosion of the prefrontal cortex and reduce gray matter correlates with porn use. So look, we've said it before. We'll say it again. I'm not an expert. This is past my pay grade. I'm, I'm trying to learn here though. But what remains unclear is whether porn use is shrinking.

[00:22:59] The gray matter of dudes or dudes with small gray matter watch more porn.

[00:23:04] Jordan Harbinger: I'm guessing also the younger you are, the more negative the effects. Do we know the age kids are seeing this content? 'cause the outrage internet that I'm addicted to. Would say that 12 year olds are watching porn, which doesn't surprise me at all.

[00:23:16] 'cause if I was 12 and I had a smartphone or a computer with internet, I would be seeking this stuff out for sure. I'm sure I would've,

[00:23:22] Michael Regilio: absolutely. And I mean, just in my own life, when one of my 12-year-old nieces grabs my phone, she, I. Can navigate into parts of my phone I didn't even know exists. She hands it back to me two seconds later.

[00:23:33] It's got a different screen, different buttons. I'm signed up. Hmm. Like they are quick. They are good. So they're going to see it. And the fact of the matter is studies show most children view porn by the age of 13, but 15% they viewed pornography online before the age of 11. Again, this is difficult to conduct, so the numbers could be higher.

[00:23:50] I mean, who's gonna admit, like even to a researcher, I started looking at that stuff when I was

[00:23:55] Jordan Harbinger: seven, or my kids are looking at it because I'm a terrible parent and can't stop them from doing it. Even though you're not a terrible parent. Because even if you won't let your kid use the internet or have a phone, some shithead kid at at school has a phone and the parents don't care that he's showing porn to all the girls.

[00:24:10] 'cause they scream and run away when he does. I mean, that's the whole thing. It's just way too young. There is some innocence lost in the coming of age with high-speed porn for sure. It's amazing how much has changed since those old mags in the woods, and I, I know you and I have probably had a similar conversation, but whenever you talk to guys or gals your age now, does it not come up where you're like, I'm so glad that the dumbest thing I did was not posted on social media because it didn't exist like the time.

[00:24:33] That I did this horrible thing or that this horrible thing was done to me. There were no camera phones. Nobody really knows about it except who was there. And those two out of the five people have already forgotten about it.

[00:24:43] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Well, I mean, this is a side topic, but uh, yeah, whenever I see like a breaking story or just something online, about 17-year-old says outrageous thing, I'm like, don't care.

[00:24:53] I don't care. Yeah. You should get a full pass. For everything. I, I got a full pass 'cause I did and said stupid things and it was never recorded and it just disappeared into the ether. These kids have a permanent record of it, so let young kids be stupid. Like if you're 17 and you said something outrageously stupid, I don't care.

[00:25:11] Yeah, I don't care. You get a pass. I'm with you because it's easy for us to follow the progression of porn use. The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953. An entire industry of adult magazines was thrust into mainstream America thrust when vcr, when VCRs became the thing. In the 19 nine, uh, eighties, porno movies came right into the home.

[00:25:31] In the nineties, the brand new worldwide web allowed porn to flow into the home endlessly For the first time, people could access porn whenever they wanted with just a few clicks of a mouse, and they often chose porn. A decade after the smartphones were in everyone's hand and porn was more accessible, affordable, and anonymous than ever, which by the way, are known as the three A of addiction.

[00:25:54] Jordan Harbinger: Ah, accessible, affordable, and anonymous are the three a's of addiction. Is that like things that make addictions really easy, is that it's accessible, affordable, and anonymous? I never heard about this.

[00:26:03] Michael Regilio: Yeah, I mean, I came across it in the research, so, uh. To the best of my understanding, yes.

[00:26:08] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, it makes sense, right?

[00:26:09] You can't be addicted to something if you can't get it and you can't afford it. And if you have consequences or people know you're doing it, it's a lot harder 'cause you have a shame element and social pressure. Absolutely. The anonymity has really changed. Nobody's getting carded by the clerk at the video store.

[00:26:23] For renting a copy of Edward Penis Hands anymore.

[00:26:27] Michael Regilio: Okay. Pulling back the curtain a little, I want to thank Jordan for editing the show notes with the proper quotes around Edward Penis hands. Yeah, he got me on that one. You are a master punctuate. Yes. But, uh, but, but this anonymity is why high speed porn is so appealing.

[00:26:43] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. It just makes our, our primal brains are going nuts for this. And some people can't stop watching, I guess. I mean, it seems like. Some people are just more predisposed to this than others. Maybe. As with all addictions, I

[00:26:54] Michael Regilio: mean, novelty packed high speed porn keeps your attention for hours on end. A lot of evidence shows this exposure changes the brain chemistry, like we said, just like drug addiction.

[00:27:04] A study at Germany's Max Plank Institute found that men not classified as having an addiction, showed addiction related brain changes when exposed to high speed porn. The more hours spent viewing porn corresponds with that reduction in gray matter. Again, it's a correlation they don't know yet, but our brain's, gray matter is something you don't want to have less of.

[00:27:24] Jordan Harbinger: You're right if, if it walks like an addiction and talks like an addiction, yada, yada. So also this reduction in gray matter. So we, we don't know the causation, but it sounds like if there is causation, is porn actually making us less motivated, less clear thinking. It seems like an overreach, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

[00:27:41] Watching porn literally makes us dumber in some ways. Is that real? Potentially.

[00:27:45] Michael Regilio: I'm trying to find out. But studies like the one we discussed, which I read about in Wired Magazine, these straight up were asking the question, is porn shrinking our brains? I mean, this is, I. A legit concern. And again, the evidence is inconclusive.

[00:27:59] And if everyone keeps shrinking their brains watching porn, we will never get an answer to this. Right.

[00:28:05] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I'd love to research this, but hold on, I'll be right back. I gotta go return some videotapes. Yeah.

[00:28:10] Michael Regilio: Kidding. Look, addiction. Or not. Dependence on pornography is known to interfere with relationships and cause some people dissatisfaction in their own sex life.

[00:28:19] It can even cause people to lose the ability to just function in daily life. Accessing pornography is so easy and provides instant satisfaction and interacting with porn is way easier than interacting with a partner who has real needs, desires, goals, problems, et cetera, on their own.

[00:28:36] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that does seem like a recipe for problematic relationships.

[00:28:39] We were talking earlier with. The movie Her, whether the guy orders the ai, robot girlfriend, those are gonna be extremely popular for people who don't wanna, I don't know, compromise on anything or deal with complex emotions. And I would imagine that right now porn serves as an escape from these same problems inside of a relationship.

[00:28:57] Just like a substance might also do, you know, oh, my wife is bugging me again. 'cause I never pay attention to her and I work too much. Let me have. A bottle of Jack Daniels instead of figuring out why I'm terrible at relating to other people and being vulnerable.

[00:29:10] Michael Regilio: Right, exactly. If an individual's porn use leads to negative effects in the relationship, the individual is likely to deal with relationship issues by relying even more heavily on porn.

[00:29:20] High speed porn can for some, be an escape from relationship issues while providing them with basic sexual satisfaction. Several studies say porn news can be a warning sign that divorces in the future. Study doesn't however resolve whether watching porn is a cause of divorce or a symptom of an already unhappy relationship.

[00:29:39] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, that would be tough, right? Because if you're in an unhappy relationship and your wife is like, I'm not sleeping with you anymore 'cause I'm grossed out by you and can't stand you, you're gonna go to porn for that release. But that's not like you using the porn is causing your unhappy relationship.

[00:29:55] Then again, if you never wanna sleep with your wife because you're like, well, I can't deal with one person when I can go look at crazy tentacle crap on the web. Now you got another issue that's gonna compound over time, I would imagine quite a bit. So is there a lot. Of that studying in porn. Do studies show whether people use porn to escape problems or is porn causing the problems?

[00:30:15] I guess that's the question I should have asked in the beginning instead of, yeah, theorizing.

[00:30:18] Michael Regilio: Well, it's a tough one, but there is evidence that suggests it is both, but the research does not show a definitive cause and effect. Regardless the problem that these changes in the brain, cause whether from or because of porn, are rarely the reason men seek help for addiction.

[00:30:34] Mm-Hmm. The driving factor for men to seek behavioral changes in their use of porn is erectile dysfunction. I. When guys realize that a real live woman can no longer turn them on, but logging onto a porn site, does they tend to admit they

[00:30:50] Jordan Harbinger: have a problem? That's scary that that can happen. I mean, erectile dysfunction, I've heard that can be hard.

[00:30:56] Michael,

[00:30:58] Michael Regilio: and I'm not just talking about older men here. No. Today, porn use is directly linked to erectile dysfunction in young men under the age of. 30. Wow. And it's, yeah, and it's not just problems with the hardware. Porn use has also been linked to an overall lack of ability to make emotional bonds, the great porn experiment.

[00:31:18] A TED Talk with Gary Wilson highlights not only just how common porn use is among young men, but that the porn free for all that floods. The web is one big unconscious global experiment. When researchers first tried to study porn use in college aged men, they ran into a huge problem. It wasn't that they couldn't find anyone willing to admit their porn habits.

[00:31:38] I know where you're going with this. They couldn't find a control group of men that was not using porn. One researcher concluded, guys who do not watch pornography do not exist.

[00:31:49] Jordan Harbinger: That is really funny because you'd think, oh, oh, go to Brigham Young University with all the guys that are really religious, and it's like, uh oh.

[00:31:57] We're supposed to tell the truth on this one. Okay. Maybe I've slipped up a little bit. I mean, this does sound like college. I remember it just being widely talked about. Not even like a taboo guys would be like, all right. Get outta my room, I gotta handle something. And you're just like, all right. What? I mean?

[00:32:11] It was just really, really, really open. 'cause half of us had internet for the first time in 1997 or in eight when I started college. They were like, get outta here. I gotta use this. Wow.

[00:32:21] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Wilson's Ted Talk points out something else Remarkable. The technological revolution and the advent of high-speed porn didn't happen until the 1990s.

[00:32:30] So when older guys give up porn, the negative effects from porn addiction are overcome in a short amount of recovery time. When guys who grew up with the internet and always have had access to high speed internet porn give it up, their addiction is much more difficult to overcome

[00:32:46] Jordan Harbinger: than the elders.

[00:32:47] Speaking of novelty seeking, check out the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back.

[00:32:55] This episode is also sponsored by Quilt Mind. So a, a really interesting thing happened the other day, a longtime listener of ours who's also a CEO and founder reached out to me on LinkedIn and he pointed out something that I had not really noticed, which is that I have over 23,000 followers on LinkedIn and I hadn't posted there in months and months and months if, if ever, really, I don't even know.

[00:33:13] These folks chose to follow me, and here I was just not engaging with them at all, which is a huge missed opportunity. Now, I know I say that I connect with you on LinkedIn, but I don't really like post anything. I kind of just answer my dms there. Turns out, though I'm not alone in this, many seasoned business professionals have solid LinkedIn followings.

[00:33:28] They built over, over a decade years at least, but just like me, they rarely post. And the reason is usually look, lack of time, not sure what to write about. Fear is coming off too salesy. There's all kinds of lunatics on LinkedIn. There's a whole subreddit for LinkedIn lunatics. Meanwhile, while we're snooze and there are tons of people out there growing their audiences, dominating their niches, connecting with a lot of interesting people, and LinkedIn has a billion global users and they're all sort of verified as real people, more or less.

[00:33:51] There's not a whole lot of like crazy conspiracy people on there. I mean growing, but you know, not the segment that's kind of dominating. Dove. My friend who runs this offered me to try out his service called Quilt Mind. Their mission is to make executives essentially, well-known slash famous on LinkedIn with just two hours of your time each month.

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[00:34:23] Your idea is Quilt Mind just handles the heavy lifting so you're not posting like cheesy, inspirational quotes like you've seen those people on LinkedIn. It's awful. I decided to give Quilt Mind a try over the next few months on LinkedIn. You can follow my journey there. Uh, a lot of you already are. For me, success on LinkedIn would mean inspiring the business community with insights from our guests, expanding our audience a little bit, connecting with potential show sponsors and advertisers.

[00:34:45] I hope it'll open up more doors for company executives to connect with me for all kinds of business opportunities. So if you like what you see from me on LinkedIn, feel free to shoot them or me an email. Uh, you can hit them at Jordan, audience@quiltmind.com. I'm also happy to refer youJordan@jordanharbinger.com and they can get you started on your own LinkedIn campaign.

[00:35:02] I'm really digging one mc in so far and I think this is great tool for business professionals. This episode is sponsored in part by the Prosecutors podcast. Are you into True Crime Podcast, but you're looking for something with a fresh perspective? Check out Alison Brett on their award-winning podcast, the prosecutors, their actual full-time prosecutors who dive into the most buzzed about true crime cases from Adnan Sayed and JonBenet Ramsey to Scott Peterson and the Delphi murders.

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[00:35:53] Our sponsors are all in one place, Jordan harbinger.com/deals, or use the AI chatbot to find any promo code anywhere on the show. Consider supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of skeptical Sunday, I. That does make sense, right? Because if 1990s guy has to give up porn, all he does is trash his playboys, toss out some blurry, overused, right, demagnetize, whatever VHS tapes and maybe refrain from the weird section of his local blockbuster or something.

[00:36:22] But nowadays, you'd have to what block all these random websites from being available in seconds on every device that you own. You need skills for that. You need apps for that. It'd be like trying to kick heroin with a stash of heroin literally in your pocket at all times. What does that say about the future of sex?

[00:36:40] Can we divert sex from evolving into a fusion of the real and virtual world? I mean, it's gonna be like ar, augmented reality sex at some point, which sounds just

[00:36:49] Michael Regilio: weird. I mean, that's my fear as well. But let me just be clear about one thing. These older guys are using high speed internet porn. What researchers believe is that because they formed these neural pathways, these sexual neural pathways in their mind in a time before high speed internet porn, and they used to be turned on by the normal things that guys are turned on by, in other words, a girl, the company of a young lady.

[00:37:10] I. They can revert back. But these younger guys that are creating these neural pathways in their brain and those formative years with high speed internet porn, they have trouble turning those pathways off and turning on the pathways that would allow them to find just normal. I say normal and that's the wrong word to what we grew up with, boy, girl.

[00:37:30] Relationships or just human, human relationships. Yeah, sure. I

[00:37:34] Jordan Harbinger: suppose you're right,

[00:37:34] Michael Regilio: you're right. To be fair,

[00:37:35] Jordan Harbinger: that was Heterocentric talking on my part. I usually don't worry about that, but if we're trying to be specific about real people, we should just include real people who are actually having sex with each other.

[00:37:46] 'cause people get upset about that enough as it is. So we might as well include, I don't want the LGBT community to get away with not also being pissed off at us right now. We wanna, we want everybody angry.

[00:37:56] Michael Regilio: Yeah. And we also don't want the LGBT community to get away with not being addicted to poor.

[00:38:00] That's right. It's,

[00:38:01] Jordan Harbinger: it's, it's everybody, you know? That's right. You, you guys, gals, and whatever other pronouns you use should also be just as, be just as upset and outta control as, as us hetero deba guys who can't get off the,

[00:38:14] Michael Regilio: the web. So, I mean, but you were asking about like this fusion of technology and porn and the fact of the matter is the lines are blurred.

[00:38:19] The, but the part of it is there are companies that. Not only want more porn consumption, but study how to get people to spend more time on their websites engaging with and buying their content. So this is about the porn business itself? Yeah, no, what I'm talking about is the business of porn. The companies making money streaming endless porn content.

[00:38:42] These companies are making decisions based on the fact that as porn use goes up, their revenue goes up. All industries study our habits and hope of finding ways to profit. I want to be clear that the porn industry is part of the problem. They're actively trying to get us to watch more porn and normalize the addiction through personalized algorithms, porn games, and subscription perks, porn

[00:39:05] Jordan Harbinger: games and perks.

[00:39:07] Sounds as corny as it gets. Maybe I'm just an old fart who doesn't understand the magic of whatever, like stepmom themed candy crush clones are out there, but a porn game just sounds absolutely ridiculous. Uh, look, I'll just say, I'll leave porn

[00:39:21] Michael Regilio: Tetris to your imagination, but, uh, it's gotta be real. Trust me.

[00:39:24] It's wild. And people will pay big bucks for porn. I guess like with everything else, we just need to follow the money. Yeah. Yep. Online porn is very big. Business porn sites receive insane website traffic. PornHub reports that in 20 19, 40 2 billion users visited their website. Jesus. Think about those numbers, man.

[00:39:45] That's 115 million visitors a day. About 5 million an hour. 80,000 dudes have logged on to PornHub since you and I started

[00:39:54] Jordan Harbinger: talking. That's insane. That's just one porn site. And again, I'll say it again, this is, that's a lot of crispy socks, man. I didn't even know that. That many socks. No under arm, under Armours doing so well, look, globally

[00:40:06] Michael Regilio: porn makes about a hundred billion dollars annually.

[00:40:09] In comparison, the NFL made $18 billion last year and Netflix made 28. So the porn industry is making more than twice the NFL and Netflix combined.

[00:40:19] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Those are big companies and we're comparing it to a whole industry, but I get the point. So did the pandemic contribute to these numbers at all, or has porn always been this high?

[00:40:27] I kind of wonder if people getting locked in are like, well, now I'm really not socializing, so here we go. Yeah. Now you're on the trolley.

[00:40:34] Michael Regilio: Mm-hmm. Usage has always been a huge number, but on average porn sites increased revenue by between 25 and 40% during the pandemic shutdown. Wow. Content providers of porn are a motivated industry that relies on people returning to their sites over and over again.

[00:40:50] I'm sure they hooked more than a few new users during the pandemic.

[00:40:53] Jordan Harbinger: Well, is there a safe level of porn? Can we know how much porn is too much porn? Is there sort of a guideline or anything here,

[00:41:00] Michael Regilio: like how many high-speed porn sessions can you have before your brain develops these negative changes? Yeah, unfortunately, that's just not how it works.

[00:41:08] There is no magic number. It's just if your daily life or relationships are affected negatively, you're consuming too much porn. But if life isn't interrupted, chances are maybe you're just meeting your needs, but without scientific guidelines, it's kind of like you're not addicted to porn until you are oof.

[00:41:25] Jordan Harbinger: So the term too much porn, it's subjective, but not all porn turns people into addicts, or is it just kind of a All of its bad. I, I don't know. What am I, what am I getting at here? Is it all bad? All the time. Of course not.

[00:41:38] Michael Regilio: Look, I'm not trying to be a Debbie does downer here. Got it. See what you did there.

[00:41:42] Thank you. Thank you. Porn itself is not bad, and this is where controversy lies. Some studies of porn users found a significant positive effect in their lives, and porn use by couples have also had some relationship benefits. These findings are why some psychologists have not classified porn addiction as a condition.

[00:42:00] But for what I'm reading, even if it's a positive in your life today, porn is a slippery slope that can quickly turn

[00:42:07] Jordan Harbinger: negative. Why the disconnect between scientists and psychologists? I always kind of figured they were two sides of the same coin, but the more I research anything, the more I see that that's not necessarily true.

[00:42:18] Michael Regilio: It all has to do with the diagnostic and standard Manual of Mental Disorders or the DSM

[00:42:23] Jordan Harbinger: Mm-Hmm.

[00:42:24] Michael Regilio: This is the book that lists all mental disorders. Currently, porn addiction is not listed as any kind of disorder or condition. While some psychologists maintain that porn is not an addiction, others are less sure.

[00:42:35] But here's the thing. It's not that the DSM has rejected porn addiction as a mental disorder. They have yet to even consider it as a health issue worth

[00:42:43] Jordan Harbinger: their attention. Wow. How are they so behind on the scientific findings? Is that always the case? Is the DSM always sort of lagging here? Again, I wouldn't

[00:42:52] Michael Regilio: be entirely sure of that one, but the problem in this case is that interested parties spin this information to meet their narratives.

[00:42:59] The porn industry will spin it this so that it helps sell their products. But I also came across individuals in my own life that found my research into this subject concerning. No one wants their favorite pastime threatened. You know what I'm saying? Right. So no one wants to think something they're doing on a regular basis is problematic.

[00:43:16] And people did say to me, they came back to me and they were like, yo, the DSM says porn addiction isn't even a real thing. By the way, they're telling me this after four hours of masturbating porn that they call me up furiously seriously angry at me. How dare he say I'm addicted? You know, but what's really going on, I think, to be honest with you, to reach some of these people, I think someone needs to make a porn that teaches about the problems with porn to get those people to listen.

[00:43:40] I mean, if you're pitching a movie idea, I am, I am not interested at all. Okay, fine. Look, in the end, regardless of the dsns choice to not label porn addiction a mental health issue, the science shows that for some individuals. It is a serious problem that needs treatment,

[00:43:57] Jordan Harbinger: but how can somebody seek treatment if there's no defined condition?

[00:44:00] Because if you go and you say, I'm addicted to porn, they'll go, well, in my book, that's not a thing. So it has to be something else or not a problem.

[00:44:08] Michael Regilio: Well, you know what? That's the funny thing when you look up porn addiction, I found just about every place that deals with addiction, definitely. Deals with porn addiction, you know?

[00:44:16] Well, that's good, I suppose. Yeah. I mean, they're saying it's not addiction, but every place has porn addiction, facilities and programs and treatments. This feels like a good place to talk about all the spin one finds when researching high speed porn news. When looking into the negative effects of porn, I found a lot of information coming from groups who had.

[00:44:36] Moral and religious objections. Of course. Yeah. They too are spinning the information to meet their narratives. I didn't come across anyone saying it'll make you go blind, but I came across more than a few websites that insist that looking at porn is a one-way ticket to hell. Meanwhile, pro porn people say that looking at porn is a one-way ticket to heaven.

[00:44:54] Mm. Like many behavioral issues, people believe what they wanna rebel, believe, regardless of the facts.

[00:45:00] Jordan Harbinger: Is anything being done to bring awareness to the dangers of porn addiction? I know some folks out there sound the alarm, like the guy who did the TED Talk, but I mean actual authorities or health officials, not like guys on social media or on a podcast, but politicians, I mean, because say, look, if someone's gonna solve a big problem, it's certainly gonna be a politician.

[00:45:16] Am I right? No, you are not. And

[00:45:18] Michael Regilio: I'm sus, look, I'm sus, I'm very suspicious of politicians, particularly when it comes to this, these porn laws. It's clear that so much of it is from religious lawmakers who have these moral objections to porn. There is little action I found based on the scientific facts.

[00:45:33] Lawmakers in Idaho, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and at least a dozen other states have adopted resolutions declaring pornography a public health crisis.

[00:45:41] Jordan Harbinger: That just sounds like they're politicizing the condition though. 'cause what does that even mean? I. What does that do? Yeah, it does nothing. It just shames people

[00:45:49] Michael Regilio: and, right.

[00:45:49] It's virtue signaling is what it is, you know? Yeah. This year, Louisiana now requires an Id be uploaded to log onto porn sites, but these steps do little to help with people already addicted to high speed porn. What experts recommend is deleting all porn from your devices and installing parental locks.

[00:46:06] Yes, parental locks. You're an adult, but it still makes it harder to watch porn. The best way to kick an addictive porn habit is like kicking any other bad habit. Replace watching high speed porn with a different habit like exercise and identify the triggers that encourage watching porn.

[00:46:22] Jordan Harbinger: Okay, so these solutions are similar to any addiction recovery from

[00:46:27] Michael Regilio: the sound of it.

[00:46:27] Yes. And once people understand are primal sexual desires, overcoming the urge to get our dopamine from high-speed porn should be easier to control. We were once more like Bonobos mating with any opportunity that presented itself throwing poop everywhere. Yeah, yeah, it's true. But that's the thing about evolution.

[00:46:46] It allows us to evolve sitting for endless hours in front of high speed porn while ignoring the real world isn't anyone's idea of an ideal life. Allowing computers and screens to simulate sex while inhibiting opportunities for real intimacy isn't anyone's version of their best life. No one is dying from high speed porn addiction, but that doesn't mean they're not missing out on having a life.

[00:47:12] Jordan Harbinger: Well, curbing our porn enthusiasm is, uh, pretty, pretty, pretty difficult. So thanks, Michael. That was a, that was an exceptional, a triple exceptional conversation, and I appreciate your newfound expertise as a connoisseur. Once again, as a connoisseur,

[00:47:30] Michael Regilio: how dare you

[00:47:30] Jordan Harbinger: of scientific pornography research. Thank you, Jordan.

[00:47:33] Thanks everybody for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday can go to meJordan@jordanharbinger.com. Show notes@jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes. Advertisers deals and discounts. Ways to support the show are all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram.

[00:47:53] You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, Michael Lio, tell him where to find you

[00:47:57] Michael Regilio: on Instagram. You can find me at at Michael Lio. And that is R-E-G-I-L at o, or@michaelgiliocomedy.com, where I'm currently in New York City for a month and doing shows and lots of opportunities.

[00:48:09] Jordan Harbinger: Oh, great. Time to be in New York as well.

[00:48:11] Thank you very much. Enjoy yourself out there. This show is created an association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Rahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show.

[00:48:29] Remember, we rise by lifting others. There's a porn reference in there somewhere, but I'm not going for it. Share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism that we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you'll learn, and we'll see you next time.

[00:48:50] You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about how hormonal birth control can affect a woman's personality and even influence who they pick as a partner.

[00:48:58] Sarah Hill: They found that women who are on the birth control pill rather than experiencing a big surge in the stress hormone cortisol in response to stressful things, they don't have any.

[00:49:09] Increase in cortisol at all. It seems like something in the birth control pill is actually causing women's stress response to go into overdrive, and in fact, this sort of a pattern is something that we usually only see in the context of chronic stress. So people who have, for example, PTSD, or people who you know, grew up in the context of trauma, this isn't normal.

[00:49:35] This isn't something that we see in otherwise healthy, high functioning people, sex hormones. Have their fingers in so many pots in the body that they're going to be influencing our brain because there's probably no place in the body that has more receptors for sex hormones than the brain. Our sex hormones are part of what gives us, you know, our sort of Jo ViiV.

[00:49:59] It's like part of what makes life exciting and, and it turns the volume up and makes our whites white and our brights brighter in terms of our sort of experience of the world. We've been really, really cavalier about this idea that we should change a person's personality and who they are and their experiences in the world, so that way they don't have menstrual cramps.

[00:50:21] We don't yet know whether or not the birth control pill is influencing the way that women's brains are being organized, and there's almost no research on this. It's like nobody's really stopped it. Ask the questions

[00:50:34] Jordan Harbinger: to hear more from Dr. Sarah Hill about the problems with taking birth control. Check out episode two 80 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:50:42] This episode is sponsored in part by the Castro Podcast App Castro. The podcast app is in new hands. It's been upgraded to be better than ever. I thought it shut down, but then they got bought by an actual app developer, which is great 'cause that means somebody's actively working on this thing all the time.

[00:50:55] Castro stands out when it comes to handling loads of podcasts. It's got an inbox feature that lets you sort through new episodes. You can easily pick what to listen to next. You can skip the rest. And with its drag and drop system, you can tailor your listening queue exactly how you want it, and if you're always driving, by the way, you're gonna love how Castro works with car play, which lets you seamlessly continue listening right where you left off.

[00:51:15] Plus, there's an Apple Watch app that allows you to control your playback or choose your next episode without missing a beat. And for those who really wanna power through their listening list. Castro offers an optional paid subscription that includes a trim silence feature. I know that that doesn't sound like much, but I use this all the time.

[00:51:31] I basically leave it on. It's fantastic for getting through content quickly. I swear by this. For audio books, it saves like an hour per book. There's a lot of silence in spoken word stuff, not this show, 'cause I can't shut up. But if you're on the hunt for an easy to use podcast app, you gotta check out the Castro app spelled C-A-S-T-R-O.