Symptoms of depression and anxiety and pornography-viewing frequency among young adults

What did the study examine?

The study used data from a prospective cohort of 1,864 young adults in Southern California. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were measured at baseline, and pornography-viewing frequency was assessed at follow-up about six months later.

The statistical models separately examined symptoms of depression alone, anxiety alone, and combined depression and anxiety, while adjusting for gender, sexual orientation, sexual satisfaction and adverse childhood experiences.

What did it find?

Participants with combined symptoms of depression and anxiety had 2.72 times the odds of reporting viewing pornography once to several times a day at follow-up, compared with participants who reported no symptoms and no pornography viewing.

Symptoms of depression alone were associated with frequent viewing, but the estimate did not reach statistical significance in the primary category. Anxiety alone was not associated with viewing frequency in the full sample; in an analysis stratified by gender, an association was observed among women only.

How should the results be interpreted?

The study measured mental-health symptoms at baseline and pornography-viewing frequency at follow-up. It therefore does not show that pornography viewing caused depression or anxiety; instead, it examined whether earlier symptoms might predict more frequent viewing later.

Study limitations

The researchers did not measure viewing frequency at baseline, so they could not fully rule out reverse causation. The data were self-reported, some participants were excluded because of missing data, and the measure covered videos only rather than every type of pornography.