Social media addiction and sexual dysfunction among Iranian women: The mediating role of intimacy and social support

Abstract

Background and aims: Social media use has become increasingly popular among Internet users. Given the widespread use of social media on smartphones, there is an increasing need for research examining the impact of the use of such technologies on sexual relationships and their constructs such as intimacy, satisfaction, and sexual function. However, little is known about the underlying mechanism why social media addiction impacts on sexual distress. This study investigated whether two constructs (intimacy and perceived social support) were mediators in the association of social media addiction and sexual distress among married women. Methods: A prospective study was conducted where all participants (N = 938; mean age = 36.5 years) completed the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale to assess social media addiction, the Female Sexual Distress Scale -Revised to assess sexual distress, the Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale to assess intimacy, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support to assess perceived social support. Results: The results showed that social media addiction had direct and indirect (via intimacy and perceived social support) effects on sexual function and sexual distress. Discussion and conclusions: The findings of this study facilitate a better understanding of how problematic engaging to social media can affect couples' intimacy, perceived social support, and constructs of sexual function. Consequently, sexual counseling should be considered an essential element for assessing individual behaviors in the context of social media use.

Temporal associations between morningness/eveningness, problematic social media use, psychological distress and daytime sleepiness: Mediated roles of sleep quality and insomnia among young adults

“…Process Marco (Alimoradi, Lin, Imani, Griffiths, & Pakpour, 2019; Hayes, 2103) in SPSS version 24.0 (IBM) was used to perform the mediation models. More specifically, Model 4 in Process Marco with 10,000 bootstrap samples was used to examine the mediated effects for each mediation model.…”

“…In order to strengthen the rationale of the proposed direction, reverse mediation models (i.e., morningness/eveningness being the outcome variable; problematic social media use, anxiety, depression and daytime sleepiness being the independent variables) were additionally conducted. If the reverse models had poor results, the proposed direction was somewhat supported.Process Marco(Alimoradi, Lin, Imani, Griffiths, & Pakpour, 2019;Hayes, 2103) in SPSS version 24.0 (IBM) was used to perform the mediation models. More specifically, Model 4 in Process Marco with 10,000 bootstrap samples was used to examine the mediated effects for each mediation model.…”

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for sexuality (MBCT-S) improves sexual functioning and intimacy among older women with epilepsy: A multicenter randomized controlled trial

“…The 13 items are rated on a five-point Likert scale (ranging from 0 to 4), with higher scores indicating more sexual distress [22]. The FSDS has been translated into Persian with satisfactory internal consistency (α = 0.81) [23] and good known-group validity (i.e., the Persian FSDS can distinguish sexual distress among healthy women, women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder, and women with other types of female sexual dysfunction) [24].…”

How Does Family Intimacy Predict Self-Esteem in Adolescents? Moderation of Social Media Use Based on Gender Difference

“…Previous studies have revealed the benefits of S-SMU among female. A study in married women found that couple's intimacy and perceived social support can decrease sexual distress (Alimoradi et al, 2019); Frison and Eggermont (2015) found that girls who actively use Facebook could benefit from perceive online social support, as it negatively predicted girls' depressed mood. However, teen girls also reported that social media would cause stress; those girls with high reliance on Facebook for emotional support had more negative school outcomes (Thompson & Lougheed, 2012).…”