Sex in the Digital Age: What to Remember About the Perspectives of Young Adults

The digital age has completely changed any conversation relating to sex. Statistics tell us that by the time a college student arrives on campus, they have been exposed to sexually explicit material for an average of seven years.

Those of us who work with students on a regular basis recognize the emotional and spiritual toll this takes on those on our campuses. We see the numbness, the apathy and the brokenness that often accompanies this saturation of explicit material.

Increasingly, I am becoming more aware of the physical manifestations of a sexual identity formed in the digital age. There is a growing amount of research relating to the actual neurological changes caused by long-term exposure to explicit material. The scientific term for this is neuroplasticity. Neurologically speaking, route behaviors we participate in have the ability to wire our brain to respond in certain ways and to specific stimuli.