The Impacts of Digital Technology on Human Relationships: How Smartphones, Social Media, Pornography, and AI Chatbots Threaten Sex, Marriage, and Fertility

Published May 7, 2026

By Clare Morell and Chloe Lawrence

Report Summary and Advice for Policymakers

For recommendations for schools, churches, parents, individuals, and researchers,
see full report.

Key Findings:

Decreasing Rates of Marriage, Sex, and Fertility:

• Marriage rates have steadily dropped from 1990 to the present, decreasing from 9.8 marriages per 1,000 people in 1990 to 6.5 in 2018, to 6.1 per 1,000 in 2023.^[1] The decrease in marriage rates has meant a decrease in rates of sex.^[2] In 1990, 55% of adults ages 18–64 reported having sex weekly, according to the General Social Survey (GSS), but by 2024 that number had fallen to just 37%.”^[3]
• With declining marriage and sex, has come decreased fertility rates. Twenty-five years ago, the country’s fertility rate was 2.1 children per woman, equal to replacement level.^[4] By 2024, it had fallen over 20 percent to 1.6.^[5] It hit another record low in 2025, dropping to 1.57.

Smartphones and Social Media Use Undermine Relationships and Sex:

• Between 2010 and 2019, the average time young adults spent with friends in a given week fell by nearly 50%, from 12.8 hours to just 6.5 hours. The pandemic pushed this number even lower, to 4.2 hours a week with friends. And while there has been a slight increase since, we seem to have found a new norm. Young adults spent just 5.1 hours with friends in a given week in 2024.”^[6]
• Researcher Jean Twenge found that “High school seniors in 2016 (vs. the late 1980s) spent an hour less a day engaging in in-person social interaction, despite declines in paid work and little change in homework or extracurricular activity time.”^[7]
• And the “more time devoted to smart phones, social media, pornography, and gaming meant that young adults had fewer opportunities to develop the social skills needed to form relationships and spent less time in social settings—such as parties—that would facilitate romantic relationships.”^[8]
• Not only are these newer digital technologies impeding marriage, but they are also keeping married couples from having sex. Twenge hypothesizes that because of the constant availability of entertainment through smartphones and social media, sex may not be as attractive an activity as it once was.“Put simply, there are now many more choices of things to do in the late evening than there once were and fewer opportunities to initiate sexual activity if both partners are engrossed in social media, electronic gaming, or binge watching,” Twenge said.^[9]
• One study also found that problematic use of social media sites was associated with a range of sexual issues in men and women.^[10]

Pornography Use Decreases Sexual Satisfaction and Increases Sexual Problems:

• A longitudinal study of over 1,000 adolescents and young adults showed that pornography exposure consistently reduced people’s satisfaction with their sex lives, a finding that held equally true for both men and women.^[11]
• A study of high school seniors found that 16% of those who used pornography more than once a week reported low sexual desire, compared to 0% of those who did not use pornography.^[12]
• Research also indicates that, over time, pornography users begin preferring masturbation while viewing pornography over having sex with a real person. One study of men and women who had viewed pornography found that the “frequency of pornography consumption was directly related to a relative preference for pornographic rather than partnered sexual excitement.”^[13]
• Over the past few decades, rates of erectile dysfunction (ED)—which used to be known as an older man’s problem—have increased drastically in young men. In 2013, a study reported that one in four patients seeking medical help for new-onset ED were under age 40, and severe ED rates were 8.8% higher in young men than in older men.^[14]
• A 2021 study of 3,419 men found that 21.5% had some degree of ED, discovering that “higher scores for problematic pornography consumption were significantly associated with greater odds of ED—even after controlling for masturbation frequency and other factors.”^[15]
• Another study found an ED rate of 22.3% among those preferring partnered sex, but a shocking rate of 78% among those who preferred pornography over sex.^[16]

Pornography Use Negatively Impacts Marriage Formation and Existing Marriages:

• One study discovered that higher internet usage in general was associated with lower marriage rates, but “pornography use in particular was more closely linked to those participants who were not married than any other form of Internet use, including regular use of financial websites, news websites, sports websites, and several others.”^[17]
• A second study concurred, finding that men who reported watching pornography frequently were 31% less likely to get married.^[18]
• Pornography use significantly predicts relational instability. Men who consumed more pornography were nearly 3.5 times more likely to experience an end to their real-life romantic relationship.^[19]
• A comprehensive analysis combining 30 national surveys from 1973 to 2018 found that pornography use was never positively associated with relationship quality; instead, it most often was negatively associated with relationship quality.^[20]
• With the average age of pornography exposure now 12 years old,^[21] it is especially concerning that the earlier people are exposed to pornography, the more likely they are to have problems in their future sexual and romantic relationships.
• Researchers have also found that those who reported viewing any pornography at all in 2006 were more than twice as likely to be separated or divorced from their spouse by 2012, even after adjusting for marital happiness and satisfaction.^[22]

Artificial Intelligence Further Threatens Real-Life Relationships, Especially Among Youth:

• A survey of teens found that 30% ranked AI conversations as equally or more satisfying than talks with human beings, about 20% of teens who have used AI companions spend at least the same amount of time with AI as with friends, and one-third of teens have chosen to speak to AI over a real person about something important.^[23]
• One survey found that nearly three-quarters of teens use AI chatbots for companionship, and more than half do so on a daily basis. Yet only 37% of parents know their children have used an AI companion.^[24] Another survey found that 1 in 5 teens reported having an explicitly romantic relationship with an AI chatbot.^[25]
• Pornography use may also feed the growing popularity of AI companions. A survey found that “heavy porn users are the most open to romantic relationships with AI of any group and are also the most open to AI friendships in general.”^[26]
• Studies show that because vulnerable users often perceive chatbots as real people, they are prone to form “parasocial attachments” with AI that lead to “delusional thinking, emotional dysregulation, and social withdrawal.”^[27] These attachments undermine real-life relationships.
• One randomized controlled trial of chatbot users also found that frequent interaction with AI chatbots correlated with more loneliness and reduced social interaction, raising concerns about the technology’s long-term effects on relationship formation and marriage.^[28]

What Policymakers Can Do:

• Require Age Verification for Pornography Sites: The Supreme Court in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton last summer, upheld Texas’s age-verification law for pornography websites as constitutional under intermediate scrutiny, creating a clear path forward for states and Congress to pass such laws. With effective age-verification laws for pornography websites, a child is not able to access a pornography site’s content if he accidentally stumbles or clicks on a link. Meanwhile, adults can verify their age with anonymous methods that take less than 45 seconds to complete through two-factor authentication with a state digital ID or zero-knowledge proofs, neither of which transfers any personal information about the user to the site. Today, 25 states have passed age-verification laws for pornography sites. The other half should follow suit. Ultimately, Congress should pass a law like the SCREEN Act to require pornography websites nationwide to age-restrict their content.

• Regulate New AI Technologies and Age Restrict AI Companions: Policymakers must monitor new AI technologies carefully as they develop and be poised to act when regulation is needed. At the very least, policymakers must enact legislation to age-restrict access to AI companion chatbots for minors. The GUARD Act, a bipartisan bill led by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) would age-restrict AI companions for minors under 18, and several states have also introduced bills to this effect. (EPPC published a model bill for states to use last fall.)

• Age-Restrict Social Media for Minors: Congress and state legislatures should consider age restricting social media entirely for minors under age 16 (or even 18), like Australia has recently done and like the state of Florida has done for minors under 14. The negative effects of social media are not limited to an individual; they create negative group social dynamics among peers, even for children who are not on social media apps. Protecting childhood and early adolescence from the harmful influence of social media can help lay a solid social foundation for the next generation, preparing them for real-life relationships and eventually marriage and family.

• Reduce Obscenity Online and Regulate the Pornography Industry: Congress could try again to restrict the transmission of obscene material to minors, especially in light of how much the internet has changed since 1996, when it passed the Communications Decency Act (CDA). Congress should also reform Section 230 to add a Bad Samaritan carveout that removes liability protection for online platforms that knowingly promote and distribute criminal speech and activity, such as obscenity, CSAM, and human trafficking. One proposed bill taking steps in this direction is the bipartisan EARN IT Act. The bill would amend Section 230 to remove immunity from federal civil, state criminal, and state civil CSAM laws. These types of reforms would help reduce the amount of obscenity circulating on social media platforms, if not eliminate it, by holding platforms liable if they don’t remove obscene content, and reduce youth exposure to pornography. One other creative supply-side policy solution is to put more regulations on the online pornography industry itself to reduce the amount of obscenity online. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)’s PROTECT Act would require pornography websites to verify the age, consent, and identity of all individuals appearing on their platforms. The state of North Carolina passed a similar type of law that requires websites to verify the age and consent of any individual in a pornographic image before allowing it to be uploaded.

^[1] Sally C. Curtin and Paul D. Sutton, “Marriage Rates in the United States, 1900–2018,” NCHS Health E-Stat, April 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/marriage_rate_2018/marriage_rate_2018.pdf; “Provisional Number of Marriages and Marriage Rate: United States, 2000-2023,” CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System, accessed April 24, 2026, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/marriage-divorce/national-marriage-divorce-rates-00-23.pdf.

^[2] Jean M. Twenge, Ryne A. Sherman, and Brooke E. Wells, “Declines in Sexual Frequency Among American Adults, 1989–2014,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 46 (2017): 2389–401, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-017-0953-1.

^[3] Grant Bailey and Brad Wilcox, “The Sex Recession: The Share of Americans Having Regular Sex Keeps Dropping,” Institute for Family Studies, August 30, 2025, https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-sex-recession-the-share-of-americans-having-regular-sex-keeps-dropping.

^[4] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Births: Final Data for 2000,” National Vital Statistics Reports 50, no. 5 (2002), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr50/nvsr50_05.pdf.

^[5] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Provisional Data for 2023,” Vital Statistics Rapid Release 38 (2024), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr038.pdf.

^[6] Bailey and Wilcox, “The Sex Recession.”

^[7] Jean M. Twenge, Brian H. Spitzberg, and W. Keith Campbell, “Less In-Person Social Interaction with Peers Among U.S. Adolescents in the 21st Century and Links to Loneliness,” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 36, no. 6 (2019): 1892–1913, https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407519836170.

^[8] Bailey and Wilcox, “The Sex Recession.”

^[9] Jean M. Twenge, “Possible Reasons US Adults Are Not Having Sex as Much as They Used To,” JAMA Network Open 3, no. 6 (2020): e203889, https://doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.3889.

^[10] Vanessa Fuzeiro, Catarina Martins, Cátia Gonçalves, Ana Rolos Santos, and Rui Miguel Costa, “Sexual Function and Problematic Use of Smartphones and Social Networking Sites,” The Journal of Sexual Medicine 19, no. 8 (2022): 1303–8, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2022.05.004.

^[11] Jochen Peter and Patti M. Valkenburg, “Adolescents’ Exposure to Sexually Explicit Internet Material and Sexual Satisfaction: A Longitudinal Study,” Human Communication Research 35, no. 2 (2009): 171–94, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2009.01343.x.

^[12] Damiano Pizzol, Alessandro Bertoldo, and Carlo Foresta, “Adolescents and Web Porn: A New Era of Sexuality,” International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health 28, no. 2 (2016): 169–73, https://doi.org/10.1515/ijamh-2015-0003.

^[13] Peter Wright et al., “Associative Pathways Between Pornography Consumption and Reduced Sexual Satisfaction,” International Journal of Sexual Health 29, no. 3 (2017): 227–44, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316815461_Associative_pathways_between_pornography_consumption_and_reduced_sexual_satisfaction.

^[14] Paolo Capogrosso et al., “One Patient out of Four with Newly Diagnosed Erectile Dysfunction Is a Young Man,” The Journal of Sexual Medicine 10, no. 7 (2013): 1833–41, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1743609515304288.

^[15] Tim Jacobs et al., “Associations Between Online Pornography Consumption and Sexual Dysfunction in Young Men: Multivariate Analysis Based on an International Web-Based Survey,” JMIR Public Health and Surveillance 7, no. 10 (2021): e32542, https://doi:10.2196/32542.

^[16] Jonathan H. Berger et al., “Survey of Sexual Function and Pornography,” Military Medicine 184, nos. 11–12 (2019): 731–37, https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usz079.

^[17] Michael Malcolm and George Naufal, “Are Pornography and Marriage Substitutes for Young Men?,” IZA Discussion Paper no. 8679 (2014), https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/8679/are-pornography-and-marriage-substitutes-for-young-men.

^[18] Samuel L. Perry and Kyle C. Longest, “Does Pornography Use Reduce Marriage Entry During Early Adulthood? Findings from a Panel Study of Young Americans,” Sexuality & Culture 23 (2019): 394–414, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-018-09581-4.

^[19] Samuel L. Perry and Joshua T. Davis, “Are Pornography Users More Likely to Experience a Romantic Breakup? Evidence from Longitudinal Data,” Sexuality & Culture 21 (2017): 1157–76, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-017-9444-8.

^[20] Samuel L. Perry, “Pornography and Relationship Quality: Establishing the Dominant Pattern by Examining Pornography Use and 31 Measures of Relationship Quality in 30 National Surveys,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 49, no. 4 (2020): 1199–1213, https://doi:10.1007/s10508-019-01616-7.

^[21] Michael B. Robb and Supreet Mann, Teens and Pornography, (Common Sense Media, 2023).

^[22] Samuel L. Perry, “Pornography Use and Marital Separation: Evidence from Two-Wave Panel Data,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 47, no. 6 (2018): 1869–80, https://doi:10.1007/s10508-017-1080-8.

^[23] Michael B. Robb and Supreet Mann, Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs: How and Why Teens Use AI Companions (Common Sense Media, 2025).

^[24] Robb and Mann, Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs.

^[25] Elizabeth Laird, Maddy Dwyer, and Hannah Quay-de la Vallee, Hand in Hand: Schools’ Embrace of AI Connected to Increased Risks to Students (Center for Democracy & Technology, 2025), https://cdt.org/insights/hand-in-hand-schools-embrace-of-ai-connected-to-increased-risks-to-students/.

^[26] Wendy Wang and Michael Toscano, “Artificial Intelligence and Relationships: 1 in 4 Young Adults Believe AI Partners Could Replace Real-Life Romance,” Institute for Family Studies, November 14, 2024, https://ifstudies.org/blog/artificial-intelligence-and-relationships-1-in-4-young-adults-believe-ai-partners-could-replace-real-life-romance.

^[27] Keith Robert Head, “Minds in Crisis: How the AI Revolution is Impacting Mental Health,” Journal of Mental Health & Clinical Psychology (review article, September 5, 2025), https://www.mentalhealthjournal.org/articles/minds-in-crisis-how-the-ai-revolution-is-impacting-mental-health.html.

^[28] David Adam, “Supportive? Addictive? Abusive? How AI Companions Affect Our Mental Health,” Nature 641 (2025): 296–98, https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-01349-9.

Chloe Lawrence is a Policy Analyst at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works in the program on Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing. Before joining EPPC, Ms. Lawrence was a Speechwriter and Press Secretary in the United States Senate. She has also been a journalist for a national newspaper.

Clare Morell is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in the Bioethics, Technology and Human Flourishing Program. She is also the author of the award-winning book, The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones, published by Penguin Random House. Prior to joining EPPC, Ms. Morell worked in both the White House Counsel’s Office and the Department of Justice, as well as in the private and non-profit sectors.