The entreporneurship COVID boom
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA
President and CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, another lousy golfer, terrible cook, friction fixer
Much like entrepreneurship and innovation, there are many definitions of pornography, generally described as representation of sexual behavior in books, pictures, statues, films, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement.
The phrase "I know it when I see it" is a colloquial expression by which a speaker attempts to categorize an observable fact or event, although the category is subjective or lacks clearly defined parameters. The phrase was used in 1964 by United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to describe his threshold test for obscenity in Jacobellis v. Ohio. In explaining why the material at issue in the case was not obscene under the Roth test, and therefore was protected speech that could not be censored, Stewart wrote:
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
Some think we should be talking about porn more than we are. However intensely private it might seem, for better or worse, porn is not something we interact with solely as individuals. It enters our relationships; it molds us. We can meet that passively with silence, or we can just start talking — really talking — and see where we end up.
A growing body of evidence suggests an unprecedented increase in internet use and consumption of online pornography during the pandemic, and even directly caused by it. In this review, the authors report data from relevant sources to show the rise in pornography use during lockdowns in different countries worldwide. In addition to a brief overview of the neurobiology of internet addiction broadly and problematic online pornography use specifically, similarities with substance use disorders are explained. They conclude that the current pandemic and its aftermath represent a challenge and an opportunity to revisit the conceptual discussions on these internet-mediated problems and to advance etiological and epidemiological research, agree on diagnostic criteria, and identify effective interventions to better understand and minimize the individual and social impact of these. The review provides an up-to-date perspective on the topic and guidance to start addressing the problems of pathological internet and online pornography use.
We seem to be seeing the same trends and challenges with COVID entreporneurship i.e. a behavioral addiction to all things entrepreneurial intended to cause excitement and stimulation, be it social, psychological or, in some instances, sexual. Power is so sexy. If and whe ever get back to doing on site cocktail parties, entreporneurship might even replace the skyrocketing price of real estate and home prices as the main topic of conversation.
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Maybe it has contributed to the COVID baby bump.
Among the many manifestations are:
Like COVID pornography, we have a lot to learn about the prevalence, incidence, contagiousness and impact of entreporneurship. The hard part, though, is that, for the most part, we won't be able to know it when we see it and there is unlikely to be a vaccine in the near future. Even if it were available, I suspect most would refuse to get it.
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs
Updated 3/2023