'Love in the time of Corona': Predicting willingness to engage in sexting during the first COVID-19-related lockdown

Autor(en)
Marina Frederike Thomas, Alice Binder, Jörg Matthes
Abstrakt

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, in early 2020, lockdowns limited the options for physical intimacy and many resorted to technology-mediated forms of intimacy such as sexting. However, it is unclear what predicted willingness to engage in sexting during the lockdown. The present study filled this gap by investigating COVID-19-related social isolation, privacy concerns, age, and gender as predictors of willingness to engage in sexting. We further examined an interaction of COVID-19-related social isolation and privacy concerns on willingness to engage in sexting. We conducted online surveys with 494 young adults (Study 1) and with a quota-based sample of 437 adults (Study 2) in Austria. In both studies, negative binomial regressions revealed a positive effect of COVID-19-related social isolation on willingness to engage in sexting. Privacy concerns hindered young adults in Study 1 from engaging in sexting but not relatively older adults in Study 2. However, in neither study did privacy concerns moderate the effect of COVID-19-related social isolation on willingness to engage in sexting: Even individuals with high privacy concerns were more willing to sext under conditions of social isolation, suggesting that the need for intimacy outweighed the need for privacy protection. Gender had no effect in either study, indicating that men and women used sexting to cope with the unprecedented COVID-19-related situation.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Journal
Archives of Sexual Behavior: an interdisciplinary research journal
Band
51
Seiten
157-168
Anzahl der Seiten
12
ISSN
0004-0002
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-022-02292-w
Publikationsdatum
2022
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Psychology(all), Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/love-in-the-time-of-corona-predicting-willingness-to-engage-in-sexting-during-the-first-covid19related-lockdown(e7323a8b-332d-4e72-84cd-0626e8674d11).html