The Impact of Technology on Human Relationships
By Ray Ross (Respect Life Team)
Earlier this month the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) published a detailed report
entitled, The Impact of Digital Technology on Human Relationships: How Smartphones, Social
Media, Pornography and AI Chatbots Threaten Sex, Marriage, and Fertility. The report was
written by Clare Morell and Chloe Lawrence. I urge you to read the full report ==> here. <==
Because of the length of the report, I’m going to discuss the first part of the report this month, and the rest of the report next month.
As we know from my earlier articles, the birth rates and fertility rates in the U.S. are down
significantly and getting worse. We also know that marriage rates are dropping sharply due to
co-habitation and a host of other factors.
The average time young people spend with friends has gone from 12 hours a week in 2010 to
5.1 hours in 2024. Young people are spending their time engaged with their smart phones,
social media, pornography and gaming. As a result, they are not learning the social skills needed
to form lasting relationships. How often have we seen a young couple out on a date not talking
with one another but looking at their phones.
“The reality today is that people’s lives are flooded with digital distractions that offer
alternatives for the comfort and connection people desire from human relationships…”
A major impact on human relationships has been the increased access to pornography which
has “damaged the human brain, sexual satisfaction, sexual function, and human relationships.”
A 2023 study found that 73% of teens between 13 – 17 have watched pornography online and
54% of those said they first watched pornography before the age of 13. I remember leaving a
party a few years ago behind a mother and her 12-year-old son and he mentioned an X rated
series that was playing on HBO. His mother told him he would never watch that series in her
house and his response was I’ve watched every episode for the last year on my X-box.
The authors point out that pornography causes spikes in dopamine in the brain and that these
spikes, like drug usage, are addictive. Worse yet, pornography users need more viewing as they
get increasingly desensitized and need more viewing to get the same level of dopamine hit. This results in significant changes in brain structural formation, but other physiological changes
occur as well over time. Many male users suffer from erectile dysfunction well before the age
of 50. Hormonal changes often occur in both men and women. This leads to less pleasure from
and less desire for normal sexual and romantic relationships and a “growing compulsion to view
pornography, which perpetuates the vicious cycle.”
What is the societal impact of this pornography consumption? Adults often fail to enter into
meaningful relationships, there is less marriage formation, those in relationships often breakup,
there is significant relationship dissatisfaction, marriages end in divorce, sperm rates and
fertility are affected for those couples that want to have children, children are impacted when
there is a divorce. This has become a huge threat to the American family. Worse yet, AI further
threatens to exacerbate an already terrible situation.
I’ll cover the AI pornography apocalypse next month in part 2.