The Use of Online Pornography as Compensation for Loneliness and Lack of Social Ties Among Israeli Adolescents

The Internet provides people with the ability to act anonymously, which may lead them to feel secure and to release them from many of their inhibitions. In many cases, this leads them to participate in cybersex activities and online pornography. This study examined the psychological factors behind young people’s sexual behavior online. Participants comprised 713 Israeli adolescents (383 boys and 330 girls) aged 14 to 18 years. Our results indicated that the impact of loneliness on online sexual activity and frequency of pornography use was dependent on participants’ attachment orientations. Engagement in online sexual activities and use of pornography were high among anxiously attached individuals regardless of the extent of their loneliness. Loneliness was found to increase the use of online sexual activities and pornography, only among secure and anxiously avoidant individuals. Online sexual activity and pornography were also found to be related to offline sexual activity. The results are described and discussed.

In the current study (Efrati & Amichai-Hamburger, 2018) the results indicate that participants with offline sexual experience show a higher prevalence of pornography use (PU) and participated in more Sexually related online activities (SROA). This factor was significant above and beyond the contribution of religiosity, age, or gender. among people who scored higher on attachment anxiety, the frequency of PU and the number of SROA were high, regardless of the levels of loneliness. among adolescents low on attachment avoidance, and therefore high on attachment security, the frequency of PU was low regardless of loneliness. Among adolescents high on attachment avoidance, however, the higher the level of loneliness, the more prevalent is the PU. In this case, the results indicate that being just high on attachment avoidance is not enough to affect consumption of pornography without loneliness. the analyses indicated that secular male youths reported a higher prevalence of PU and more SROA than did religious people. 51.3% of the sample reported being sexually active online.