A recent Australian study from the Swinburne University of Technology reveals that the more time a man spends online looking for sexual thrills, the more likely he is to suffer from poor mental health.  In a survey of 1325 Australian and American men, doctoral student Marcus Squirrel found that 27 percent of the men surveyed were moderately depressed, 30 percent had high levels of anxiety, and 35 percent were moderately to severely stressed. Those numbers were directly related to the amount of time the men spent on sex sites.

That’s not to say that cybersex is in itself a bad thing, however an excessive amount of online sexual activity can be a sign of deeper personal problems. It’s important for people to be aware of what motivates them to do the things they do. Sometimes, our hobbies are actually forms of self-medication, subconscious efforts on our part to bring balance back to our lives.

Cybersex itself is a snack, it’s not a meal. People who spend more time on cybersex than the actual kind are a bit like people who spend more time eating junk food then real meals. They’re trading real calories for the empty variety. Instead of eating a healthy dinner, they’re muching on cheatos and drinking cola. After awhile, their health will take a hit.

In the end, it’s about moderation and self-control. Cybersex itself isn’t a determinant of poor health — the majority of the men surveyed were healthy, and many of the men who spent a lot of time engaging in cybersex didn’t suffer from depression. However, on average, the more time that was spent on sex sites, the more likely the person had problems of some kind. This knowledge should encourage people who do frequent sex sites to examine their habits and find out if they’re approaching them in a way that adds to their life or in a way that masks their unhappiness. Put differently, they need to make sure that they treat cybersex like a snack and not a meal replacement.