Millennials – people born between 1980 and 1995 – will be familiar with studies making claims about them, from observations on their eating habits to their anxiety levels. But now their sex lives, or lack thereof, are also being put under the microscope. A US study suggests that young people born in this bracket are less sexually active than previous generations.

This was found to be particularly true for younger millennials born in the 1990s, sometimes referred to as the Snapchat generation.

Eight young people shared their views on this story, based on their experiences:

Helen, 25, Hampshire: my generation is very comfortable talking about sexual identity

I don’t think millennials are having less sex. In my group of female friends, we talk about sex openly and are very comfortable discussing our sexual identity (there is very little or no judgment on this from others).

There should be more information about female sexual pleasure. Websites such as OMGyes should be given more attention. We are really lacking in proper sex education too, especially information about sexual identity and female pleasure.

My biggest fear around sex is getting pregnant. My partner and I practise the withdrawal method (I couldn’t cope with the psychological effects of the pill or the implant). We both hate using condoms. Having had more than my fair share of brief encounters, sex for me is infinitely better in a long-term, loving relationship. It’s much better when you can be completely honest about what you like and dislike, and let yourself go.

Hatty, 25, London: to millennials, the older generation’s obsession with sex seems really backward

Millennials are not less interested in sex, we just have less to prove about it.

In the UK at least, 1990s “ladette” culture saw young women proving their feminist credentials by being more like the boys and having more casual sexual encounters than they might actually have wanted to. Millennials, on the other hand, have no pressure from family to remain virginal (my mum put me on the pill and bought me condoms without batting an eyelid), but also no pressure to be sexually liberated either.

There is also less pressure on men to be macho about sex. I have a male friend who waited until his early 20s to lose his virginity, because he wanted it to be within the context of a loving relationship and he wasn’t afraid to tell people that.

To millennials, the older generation’s obsession with sex and their highly restrictive gender-normative approach seems backward.

Abby, 24, London: young people lack information about sexual pleasure and orgasms for women

Millennials are as interested in sex as any other generation and they want it just as much. Whether or not we are doing it as much, I am not sure, but a quick search on Tumblr will show you that there’s no shortage of interest.

The difference is perhaps that asexuality is now more acknowledged and accepted. People are more comfortable admitting that they have no interest in sex.

Before I started having sex, my biggest fear was that I would be a virgin forever. Now that I’m in a relationship, I don’t have any huge fears or anxieties, apart from worries about getting pregnant. But I’m on the pill and I’m careful, so I’d have to be very unlucky for that to happen.

Young people lack information about sexual pleasure for women. There’s so much information on the internet, if you know where to look, but there are lots of teenage girls and young women who are too focused on male pleasure. It’s important for women to enjoy sex too.

Floarin, 25, London: we now live in an overly sexualised world – maybe that’s led to sex fatigue

I don’t think young people are less interested in sex. We may be even more interested in it. Attitudes have changed and we can speak about it more openly than perhaps our parents did. That said, society is saturated with sexual imagery, so much so that we’ve almost become desensitised to it. That could have an impact on our sex lives. Almost a form of fatigue, where we think about it often, but don’t necessarily engage in it as much.

But that’s very much conjecture. They’re just extrapolations. You only have to look at what they allow before the watershed now, in comparison with only 10 years ago, to see that we live in an overly sexualised world.

Jordan, 26, Essex: nowadays people prefer to stay in, rather than go out and interact

There are many reasons why millennials are less into sex, the main one being the rise in technology. Social skills are dependent on human interaction, and nowadays people do not make effort to go out and meet others, they prefer to stay in and interact online instead. This coupled with worries about contracting sexually transmitted diseases means a lot of people would rather just stay in and watch porn.

Brian, 33, London: our generation has a very different view around sexual identity. We are much more open

I believe interest in sex has increased massively due to the internet and social networking sites. People can now interact with anyone they like through a variety of dating apps. Our generation also has very different views around sexual identity. We have more words to describe sexual identities and lifestyles, such as bi, trans, asexual, polygamous etc. We are much more open.

Alice, 21, Newcastle: I feel really insecure about sex, and there’s less attention given to this

Perhaps my generation is less interested in it – I certainly am. I feel insecure about having sex and there’s less attention given to this. I think advice about performance would be helpful. Instead, people think the only thing young people worry about is sexually transmitted infections and getting pregnant.

Sex has become less important, possibly because of our overexposure to it – it’s all over TV screens, in films and on the internet. We have become less interested in the intimacy of it as a result. As a generation, we also have a lot of other sources of stress that impact on our desire to have sex. I do also think technology has made us less likely to engage in real human interaction, which includes sex.

Bella, 19, Scotland: we’re much more worried about sex

People are just as interested in sex, but we’re just so much more worried about it. I’m still a virgin, I’ll admit that, and it’s not that I haven’t had the opportunity or that I don’t want to have sex, it’s that the idea of engaging with someone like that scares me. I felt all our sex education was very much done in the spirit of scaring us away from pregnancy and STDs. It felt almost like we were being taught abstinence.

Dominic, 26, China: online porn really put me off sex

Many friends, myself included, are choosing not to have relationships and feel no social pressure to have casual sex. I’d like to think that this is because we’re more interested in other things, but these other things may well be Netflix and pointless mobile apps. The last generation were promiscuous, in part, to be rebellious in the eyes of their peers. Nowadays, there’s no social pressure to have sex. Perhaps now we are having sex as much as we actually want.

Online porn really put me off sex as a teenager. I gradually started to find it disgusting and addictive until I quit for many years. But now I understand that it can be part of a healthy sex life if it is not overconsumed.

I am looking for a relationship instead of brief sexual encounters now. I enjoy those special moments when you realise you might like someone, the first nervous touch of their hand or a shared smile. I love how messy and complex love can be, but in my mind, sex and love are two separate things.

Katie, 26, London: I don’t feel like my sexuality belongs to me, it’s just something people use to sell products

The ubiquity of sex has made us a generation obsessed with it, but terrified of the reality of it. We’re also a generation without privacy. As a young woman, I don’t feel like my sexuality belongs to me, it’s just something people use to get clicks or sell products. Just look at the recent Marc Jacobs ad – who is this for? It’s for men, so they buy it for their girlfriends.

I’m lucky enough to be in a happy same-sex relationship, but there’s no privacy in shared houses and there’s nothing sexy about hearing your flatmate snoring/wanking/watching Game of Thrones in the background as you try to have an intimate moment. And as there are far fewer real life spaces for gay women to meet other gay women now, before I found my partner I felt isolated and like queer sex between women was more about men being entertained online, rather than a real and meaningful experience between two people.

Jennifer, 23, London: people have become really bad at having flings and casual relationships

As a historian who focuses on the history of sex and sexuality, I can tell you that the enjoyment and desire for sex is timeless. What I think has happened is that people have become really bad at having flings and casual relationships. One night stands are pretty limited to nightclubs, and who goes to nightclubs any more? Plus no one is interested in mediocre one night stand sex.

But there has become such a fear culture surrounding relationships. Guys are scared to see girls more than twice, in case they accidentally end up with a girlfriend. Girls are scared to admit to guys that they are just looking for a fling or a casual arrangement, in case they look easy and it decreases their value as a woman. Deep down, we know it’s all bullshit, but we’re all inadvertently feeding this commitment-phobe madness.

• Some names have been changed