The Reward Foundation is Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation SC044948.
Our philosophy is to make the science of relationships accessible to everyone. No prior knowledge of science is required. Our aim is to raise awareness about the impact of internet po*******hy on mental and physical health, learning and attainment. We are particularly interested in communicating the impact of internet po*******hy on young people aged 10-25 yrs. We offer strategies for prevention, recovery and resilience. Adolescents are the people most vulnerable to addiction and brain conditioning of all kinds. When puberty hits, a young person’s brain naturally focuses on learning about s*x. Today that natural curiosity is facilitated and intensified by the internet. Internet po*******hy is becoming a substitute for real relationships and can delay or distort the natural learning process towards s*xual love relationships. It can seriously damage the reward system, the part of the brain that lets us fall in love. Ten years ago after the arrival of broadband, or high speed internet, men started contacting our colleague Gary Wilson in the US about a sudden inability to stop looking at p**n. He had a website that explained the science behind s*x and addiction. The visitors, many of them early adopters of broadband internet, reported how internet p**n was having a negative effect on their relationships, work and health. ‘Internet’ p**n was somehow different from the magazines and erotic DVDs of yesteryear. After investigating it more, Gary set up a new website, www.yourbrainonp**n.com, to deal with this new development. To make his work better known, our CEO, Mary Sharpe, invited him to give a talk at the first-ever TEDx Glasgow in 2012. His informative and funny talk “The Great P**n Experiment” has now had almost 7 million views on YouTube and been translated so far, into 18 languages. It has helped thousands of people recognise that their mental and physical health problems and relationship disappointments may be related to their internet p**n use. The free online recovery resources mentioned have been well received as many people feel shame and guilt about their p**n use and prefer to seek help online anonymously. We wanted to be a part of the solution too. To that end, we set up The Reward Foundation charity in 2014. Combined with our own research and extensive teaching materials, we hope to educate the public at large about the impact of the wide-scale availability of internet po*******hy steaming freely into our homes. The aim is not to ban po*******hy as such but to make people aware of the facts so that they can make ‘informed’ choices about their behaviour and where to get help if needed. Policy makers, parents, teachers and other professionals dealing with adolescents have a particular responsibility in this respect.
