To study the association between the patterns of Internet use and sexual attitudes/ behaviors in secondary school students in Bangkok. The method was a cross-sectional study. Participants were recruited by stratified random sampling from 6 schools in Bangkok. They were asked to complete the Internet use questionnaire and modified version of the Sexual Activities and Attitudes Questionnaire (SAAQ) by themselves in a semi-privacy context.
Results: 522 students participated in this study, 244 (44.5%) were males and 278 (55.5%) were females, with the mean age of 15.1 ± 1.7 years. They spent 12.9 hours/day with all types of media use on weekday and 13.4 hours/day on weekend. They spent about 2.0 and 1.3 hours/day accessing to sexual materials on Internet and social media, respectively. 57 (11.3%) students had sexual intercourse experiences with the age of the first sexual intercourse at 14.5 ± 1.6 years. 14 (24.8%) of them had more than 2 partners. There were statistically significant associations between time spent accessing sexual materials on Internet/social media and sexual preoccupation (r = 0.48, p < 0.001 and r = 0.30, p < 0.001 for Internet use and social media, respectively), sexual permissiveness (r = 0.28, p < 0.001 and r = 0.19, p < 0.001, respectively) and internal and external pressure to engage in sex (r = 0.13, p = 0.003 and r = 0.10, p = 0.028, respectively)
Conclusions: The secondary school students in Bangkok spent more than half of the day with Internet or media use. The amount of times they spent accessing sexual contents was associated with risky sexual attitudes and sexual behaviors.
