What also happens is that when you escape into the screen, you’re teaching your brain that isolation is safe. That connection and socialization is not safe, so your brain goes into a vigilant mode to protect itself because it’s basically red-alerting danger. This is not safe, because what is safe is escaping and isolating and being by yourself.
If you think about a lot of the behaviors, escaping into the screen to consume videos, to consume explicit videos, to play video games, just trolling on your phone, where you’re just looking at other people on different social media. It puts you in a position that you’re not using those socialization skills, plus you’re slowing your brain down.
Dr. Trish Leigh
For more, see Porn Increases Social Anxiety (Dr. Trish Leigh).