The Association between the Quantity and Severity of Pornography Use: A Meta-analysis

Abstract

Although the quantity of pornography use (QPU, i.e., frequency/time spent on pornography use) has been positively associated with the severity of pornography use (i.e., problematic pornography use, PPU), the magnitudes of relationships have varied across studies. This meta-analysis aimed to assess the overall relationships and identify potential moderating variables to explain the variation in these associations between QPU and PPU. We performed a literature search for all published and unpublished studies from 1995 to 2020 in major online scientific databases up until December 2020. Sixty-one studies were identified with 82 independent samples involving 74,880 participants. Results indicated that there was a positive, moderate relationship between QPU and PPU (r = 0.34, p