First, some of my reactions to the video.
0:30 - Yeah, boys and young men are having a number of problems in the academic world nowadays. Colleges have about 4 female students for every 3 male students, financial support is often more easily acessible for women than men, etc. I agree so far.
1:05 - Of course boys and men are scared of being intimate with girls and women! When an elementary schooler messes up his conversation with a girl in his class, he gets suspended. If a middle school girl hits a male peer, the boy would get into at least as much trouble as the girl would by defending himself. If a high school boy and high school girl are in a relationship, his girlfriend sending him selfies can get the boy in trouble for being a pedophile. If a woman in college regrets sleeping with a man, she can easily call it rape and destroy the man's life, even without taking any legal measures. Point is, there are a lot of incentives to avoid contact with female peers on a general basis.
1:45 - Men not catching on to womens' feelings? Sounds like every television show ever aired.
2:05 - So men having strong relationships with one another is a bad thing?
2:50 - I'm male, but somehow suspect women do not want to be based primarily on my sex appeal. Point is, if porn is more rewarding for a man than a relationship with a woman, said relationship was never built on sturdy ground in the first place.
3:25 - How long are the clips? I don't use those kinds of videos (I'm more of a literature fan), but I can easily imagine most of those 50 clips being 10 seconds long before the guy moves onto something else. Using clips as the unit of measurement seems odd.
4:17 - I love how the emphasis is on women seeking good mates. "Yeah, this is a crisis in masculinity. Think of the pain and suffering women are experiencing!" Imagine if he were talking about problems women's education and spent most of the ending talking about how men would benefit.
------
Article Reactions
"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected." - So this young men does not enjoy his class and is uncomfortable talking with a girl? Stop the presses!
He also mentioned the growing problem of a disputed phenomenon called 'porn-induced erectile dysfunction', or PIED. - Two paragraphs later, it's mentioned that there's no proven link. So we know this guy's message is at least partially BS without even finishing the article.
Parents must become aware of the number of hours a child is spending alone in their room playing games and watching porn at the expense of other activities. - When I was younger, I spent large periods of time by myself reading books and doodling maps. As I placed a greater emphasis on games later on, it actually made social activity simpler. If there were a direct link with a more "respectable" form of enertainment like literature or reading biographies, would there be any alarm?
He also called for better sex education in schools - which should focus not only on biology and safety, but also on emotions, physical contact and romantic relationships. - My experience with sex education does not instill me with confidence about schools' ability to teach about emotions and romance. Not to mention that any widespread education reform in the USA (and I suspect other countries also) will be corrupted by social politics.
Stanford Prison Experiment - This is the same guy? That explains a bit. The experiment was famous for its attempt to show what emotional, mental, and behavioral activity was inherent in the prison system. The thing is, this experiment was flawed at best. There were only 24 subjects total, all volunteers for this sort of thing, who were predominantly young men with a middle-class background and no records of trouble involving crime or mental illness. In other words, not exactly a great base for experiments. There was also nothing like a neutral observation or control group to base values off of, and hardly any findings could easily be represented as data. Zimbardo is a sensationalist who hit the jackpot, that's all.
