Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?

A significant increase in pornography use has been reported in the adolescent population worldwide over the past few years, with intensification of the phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the present review is to provide data on the frequency of pornography consumption among adolesce...

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Autor principal: Kostopoulou, Eirini
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10026209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36939878
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00431-023-04878-5
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author Kostopoulou, Eirini
author_facet Kostopoulou, Eirini
author_sort Kostopoulou, Eirini
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description A significant increase in pornography use has been reported in the adolescent population worldwide over the past few years, with intensification of the phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the present review is to provide data on the frequency of pornography consumption among adolescents during the pandemic and raise awareness about its potential impact on personal beliefs and sexual attitudes in the long term. A comprehensive literature review was performed in two scientific databases using the crossmatch of the terms “pornography”, “adolescents” and “COVID-19”. A significant increase in pornography consumption in adolescents was documented during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of social detachment. Fulfilment of sexual desires in the context of social distancing, alleviation of COVID-19-related boredom and psychological strain, and coping with negative emotions are some of the reported reasons for increased pornography use during the pandemic. However, concerns have been raised in the literature regarding potentially negative effects of excessive pornography use from an early age, including the development of pornography addiction, sexual dissatisfaction and aggressive sexual attitudes reinforced by gender preoccupations and sexual inequality beliefs. Conclusion: The extent to which increased pornography consumption from an early age during the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected adolescents’ mental well-being, personality construction and sexual behaviour is yet to be seen. Vigilance from the society as a whole is required so that potential negative adverse effects of adolescent pornography use and potential social implications are recognized early and managed. Further research is needed so that the full impact of the COVID-19-related pornography use in the adolescent population is revealed.
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spelling pubmed-100262092023-03-21 Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic? Kostopoulou, Eirini Eur J Pediatr Review A significant increase in pornography use has been reported in the adolescent population worldwide over the past few years, with intensification of the phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the present review is to provide data on the frequency of pornography consumption among adolescents during the pandemic and raise awareness about its potential impact on personal beliefs and sexual attitudes in the long term. A comprehensive literature review was performed in two scientific databases using the crossmatch of the terms “pornography”, “adolescents” and “COVID-19”. A significant increase in pornography consumption in adolescents was documented during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of social detachment. Fulfilment of sexual desires in the context of social distancing, alleviation of COVID-19-related boredom and psychological strain, and coping with negative emotions are some of the reported reasons for increased pornography use during the pandemic. However, concerns have been raised in the literature regarding potentially negative effects of excessive pornography use from an early age, including the development of pornography addiction, sexual dissatisfaction and aggressive sexual attitudes reinforced by gender preoccupations and sexual inequality beliefs. Conclusion: The extent to which increased pornography consumption from an early age during the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected adolescents’ mental well-being, personality construction and sexual behaviour is yet to be seen. Vigilance from the society as a whole is required so that potential negative adverse effects of adolescent pornography use and potential social implications are recognized early and managed. Further research is needed so that the full impact of the COVID-19-related pornography use in the adolescent population is revealed. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2023-03-20 2023 /pmc/articles/PMC10026209/ /pubmed/36939878 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00431-023-04878-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Review
Kostopoulou, Eirini
Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?
title Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?
title_full Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?
title_fullStr Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?
title_full_unstemmed Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?
title_short Impact of COVID-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?
title_sort impact of covid-19 on adolescent sexual life and attitudes: have we considered all the possible secondary effects of the pandemic?
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10026209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36939878
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00431-023-04878-5
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