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@vastness There isn't much of a real scientific proof for such a thing. I have done a good deal of reading on the topic. Then believing in the myth also does harm if you look at nofap. You run into problems like 1) the abuse of unclear science 2) the counter productive self-help aspects 3) missdiagnosing of problems 4) the improper treatment of people you perceive to be suffering from mental illness 5) feeding into narcissism. And I can tell you how this myth came about (I will copy from my notes).

So, as to how it came about. There are researchers like mormon Spencer Zitzman who think the hesitancy by his fellow scientist is "more a reflection of cultural sexual liberality and permissiveness than any lack of symptomatic and diagnostic correspondence with other forms of addiction". Given that Zitzman is a fan of the white version of Islam (Mormonism) we may say that is believes in porn addiction thanks to his religion. Then historically those who believe in porn addiction like to jump too fast into the idea. As seen with the birth of the idea of porn addiction itself. This comes about only when people start to use the internet for porn. Kimberly Young in 1996 as the net is a new thing for many begin to write about internet addiction, and thought it was a new emerging clinical disorder. He built a test for internet addiction this new problem that he had found. In 1998 he would argue that his new internet addiction was linked to depression. In 1997 one Delmonico would add on this new idea the idea of cybersex addiction, but found strong anecdotal evidence. Yet, as every reddit man knows anecdotal evidence is the weakest form of evidence. The King in 1999 (that is his name) would link porn use to online gambling. Nowadays in the literature you will see more about "problematic porn use" than addiction cuz there isn't enough there to really point to addiction.

What we could call "problematic porn use" does have thing does in-fact have similarities with addition, but these similarities may be the motivation to porn use. It would be improper to go off the data that we have now and say that porn addiction is real. This paper Online Porn Addiction: What We Know and What We Don’t—A Systematic Review one researcher (Prause) in a way they would hate to be cited, with the well-known weaknesses of her work. I find her work being cited and lines with it like "this time with a control group". It cites her as she found "there are higher EEG readings in these users, as well as the diminished desire for sex with a partner, but not for masturbation to pornography" which may be a sign of desensitization. Then getting into more similarities in the brain looking more into hypersexuality like connectivity between ventral striatum and prefrontal cortex, between prefrontal cortex and the amygdala, functional connectivity between caudate and temporal cortex lobes. Interestingly, unlike what we see in substance addictions we can also find increased volume of the amygdala. There is still the also the question of if we are neurological makeup that drives porn use, or what porn does to the brain.

The paper does also bring up other things that we find in association to gooning. Things like erectile dysfunction and problems in bed, but as always when we find stuff like this there is also the question as to what associations are we missing. For example one study I read pointed out things like premature and delayed ejaculation, body dissatisfaction and ED went up with increased porn use only for those who hold as the paper calls it traditional masculinity ideologies meaning "Avoidance of Femininity (AF), Negativity towards Sexual Minorities (NT), Self-reliance through Mechanical Skills (SR), Toughness (T), Dominance (Do), Importance of Sex (IS), and Restrictive Emotionality (RE)"

With the state of the science as it is little can be said.

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