It was to stop feeling bad. Users told me they log on when they feel sad, anxious, or lonely.
Grindr can make those feelings go away. The attention and potential for sex distract from painful emotions. A staggering number of gay men suffer from depression, with some estimates as high as 50 percent. A recent survey of , iPhone users by Time Well Spent , a nonprofit focused on the digital attention crisis, showed that 77 percent of Grindr users felt regret after using the app. The users I interviewed told me that when they closed their phones and reflected on the shallow conversations and sexually explicit pictures they sent, they felt more depressed, more anxious, and even more isolated.
Some experience overwhelming guilt following a sexual encounter in which no words are spoken. And yet they keep coming back for that temporary emotional relief. One user told me that he feels so bad after a hookup that he jumps right back on the app, continuing the cycle until he is so tired he falls asleep. Every once in a while, he deletes the app, but he finds himself downloading it the next time he feels rejected or alone. Not all Grindr users are addicted and depressed, of course. Some users I interacted with seem to use Grindr in a healthy, positive way.
Why do so many of these men turn to Grindr to begin with? One year-old user told me that the only places he can find gay men are clubs and Grindr, and both are hypersexualized.
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The cultures of both intimidate him. The year-old is afraid of rejection, and Grindr shields him from the pain of in-person turndowns. His relationships, he says, start with casual sex on Grindr. They first meet at 2 am for a hookup. Then the next step may be drinks. Another user told me he downloaded the app hoping to find a husband. The mental health professionals I spoke to are seeing problematic Grindr use in their clinics.
And there is little published guidance on how to help those who are struggling. Doctors I spoke to say the best available tools for treating problematic Grindr use are the ones they use in general sex addiction treatment. Citalopram, a common antidepressant, was shown in one small study to be helpful with sex addiction in gay men. Naltrexone, a drug commonly used for other compulsive behaviors, may work as well. For more extreme cases, patients could request hormonal implants that turn off testosterone signaling, making sexual cravings less intense.
We need to talk about how Grindr is affecting gay men’s mental health - Vox
However, even these treatments have modest empirical support at best , and none have been studied for hookup app use specifically. Shane Kraus, the director of the behavioral addictions clinic at Bedford Veterans Hospital and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, says the most promising treatment for problematic Grindr use is likely talk therapy techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy CBT.
CBT can teach patients to engage in other behaviors that are more productive though often more difficult and time-consuming than Grindr to help them feel loved or supported. Another psychotherapeutic technique known as acceptance and commitment therapy ACT can help teach patients how to better tolerate the feeling of being alone without logging on to Grindr. The dynamics of Grindr, though, are complicated, and it can take time to work through all the angles.
Are you self-soothing anxiety? Are you addicted to sex? Have you lost interest in your monogamous relationship? Ultimately, Kraus explains that therapy can help clarify these kinds of thoughts and feelings, and lead to insights that bring about a healthy change. Grindr did not respond to our request for comment on this piece. As we continue to fight to bring gay relationships into the mainstream, we need to keep an eye on Grindr and how it both reflects and affects gay culture. The bathhouse is still around. Jack Turban is a physician and medical writer at Harvard Medical School, where he researches gender and sexuality.
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We need to talk about how Grindr is affecting gay men’s mental health
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