I keep seeing this topic brought up and I decided to look into it.

There's no scientific evidence to support the idea nofap does anything for people except give them a placebo effect. Whatever positive results people report are likely all in their mind.

I can start a movement called 'drop hammer on toe every morning', and if I convince people it can help them improve their lives and they follow my advice, some or even many people will report success and keep dropping hammers on their toe. People who get the placebo effect will join /r/nofap and convince others, and people who got nothing out of it won't, meaning the subreddit is a classic case of selection bias.

Since there is no evidence supporting nofap, I think it's highly questionable to suggest to men struggling to get laid that they should deny themselves sexual release. Their lives are already fucked up, and they can better themselves in so many other ways, like lifting.

People can get psychologically obsessed with anything, gaming, porn, drugs/alcohol, TV, religion, etc. If you have an unhealthy obsession with something, you might want to consider cutting back, but please don't delude yourself about the efficacy of denying yourself simple pleasures.

If you tried nofap and got something out of it, great, but realize it's likely not the nofapping itself that did anything for you. You did it yourself, mind over matter, cogito ergo sum. And that's ultimately more empowering than relying on the lie of nofap.

TL;DR: There's nothing to support the theory that porn rewires the human brain and affects the dopamine-reward center. There's nothing to support the idea it can alleviate approach anxiety. Testosterone levels are only increased on the 7th day of nofap and thereafter return to baseline. No empirical data supports porn-ED theory. Porn does not cause mental disorders, people with mental disorders are drawn to porn and tend to get obsessed as a way of checking out of reality and self-medicating so they don't have to deal with the underlying issues they have (like depression, anxiety, laziness, obesity, low self-esteem, etc).

Read this if you need more convincing.