Mental Health
The pornography use and its addiction among emerging adults in Malaysia: An observational study.
Full article title: The pornography use and its addiction among emerging adults in Malaysia: Perceived realism as a mediator
Open Access: Yes
Abstract
Past studies have demonstrated a link between pornography use and addiction to pornography, the underlying mechanism of the association is still unclear. This study intended to examine the mediating role of perceived realism of pornography in the association between pornography use and addiction among emerging adults in Malaysia. This study recruited 222 self-identified pornography users (M age = 21.05; SD Age = 1.68; 75.1% male respondents) via the purposive sampling method. The correlation results indicated positive associations among pornography use, addiction to pornography, and perceived realism of pornography. Further, the perceived realism of pornography significantly mediated the association between pornography use and addiction to pornography after controlling for gender. Thus, this study has provided a fundamental understanding on the perceived realism role of pornography in explaining the association between its use and addiction. Although it is unlikely to stop illegal pornography use, the results pointed out a need to guide emerging adults in pornography use via media literacy programmes.
Relevance
“The results revealed a positive association between pornography use and pornography addiction. Likewise, perceived realism positively correlated with pornography addiction. Also, the present study revealed that perceived realism mediates the association between pornography use and pornography addiction. The results suggested that pornography use is positively correlated with higher perceived realism among Malaysian emerging adults. This means that participants who claimed to use pornography more often were more likely to treat the sexual scripts shown in pornography as real.” Additionally, “This study supports the ongoing effort for sex education providers to promote media literacy on unrealistic pornography production to minimise and to reduce perceived realism, thereby minimising the dependency on pornography use.”
Citation
Tan, S.A., Ng, S. H. L., Hoo, J. J. Y., Gan, S. W., Nainee, S., Yap, C. C., Lee, L. K., Zaharim, N. M., & Goh, Y. S. (2022) The pornography use and its addiction among emerging adults in Malaysia: Perceived realism as a mediator. PLoS ONE, 17(5), Article e0268724. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268724