CHICAGO – Groundbreaking research suggests that pregnancy rates are much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior than among those who have tamer viewing tastes.
"Sex and the City," anyone? That was one of the shows used in the research.
The new study is the first to link those viewing habits with teen pregnancy, said lead author Anita Chandra, a Rand Corp. behavioral scientist. Teens who watched the raciest shows were twice as likely to become pregnant over the next three years as those who watched few such programs.
Previous research by some of the same scientists had already found that watching lots of sex on TV can influence teens to have sex at earlier ages.
Shows that highlight only the positive aspects of sexual behavior without the risks can lead teens to have unprotected sex "before they're ready to make responsible and informed decisions," Chandra said.
The study was released Monday in the November issue of Pediatrics. It involved 2,003 12- to 17-year-old girls and boys nationwide questioned by telephone about their TV viewing habits in 2001. Teens were re-interviewed twice, the last time in 2004, and asked about pregnancy. Among girls, 58 became pregnant during the follow-up, and among boys, 33 said they had gotten a girl pregnant.
Participants were asked how often they watched any of more than 20 TV shows popular among teens at the time or which were found to have lots of sexual content. The programs included "Sex and the City," "That '70s Show" and "Friends."
Pregnancies were twice as common among those who said they watched such shows regularly, compared with teens who said they hardly ever saw them. There were more pregnancies among the oldest teens interviewed, but the rate of pregnancy remained consistent across all age groups among those who watched the racy programs.
Chandra said TV-watching was strongly connected with teen pregnancy even when other factors were considered, including grades, family structure and parents' education level.
But the study didn't adequately address other issues, such as self-esteem, family values and income, contends Elizabeth Schroeder, executive director of Answer, a teen sex education program based at Rutgers University.
"The media does have an impact, but we don't know the full extent of it because there are so many other factors," Schroeder said.
But Bill Albert, chief program officer at the nonprofit National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, praised the study and said it "catches up with common sense."
"Media helps shape the social script for teenagers. Most parents know that. This is just good research to confirm that," Albert said.
Still, U.S. teen pregnancies were on a 15-year decline until a 3 percent rise in 2006, the latest data available. Experts think that could be just be a statistical blip.
And Albert noted that the downward trend occurred as TV shows were becoming more sexualized, confirming that "it's not the only influence."
Psychologist David Walsh, president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, cited data suggesting only about 19 percent of American teens say they can talk openly with a trusted adult about sex. With many schools not offering sex education, that leaves the media to serve as a sex educator, he said.
"For a kid who no one's talking to about sex, and then he watches sitcoms on TV where sex is presented as this is what the cool people do," the outcome is obvious, Walsh said.
He said the message to parents is to talk to their kids about sex long before children are teens. Parents also should be watching what their kids watch and helping filter messages sex-filled shows are sending, he said.
RSS
pvl, sexually explicit literature has been available for years be it in the form of a novel or hand drawn pictures and have been having a negative impact on our society all along the way. Porn be it in the form of a novel or picture is centuries old.
Thanks believer, good points pvlman.
I think there are two real messages here...
1) The producers of these television programs know exactly what content to present.
2) As usual it is the youth that are watching all the television. They still don't have anything better to do.
Good grief teens in the British Colonies where getting pregnant, before there was a USA, or film and TV for that matter. I suppose it was the fault of the barn yard animals? They never needed sex Ed, to teach them the mechanics of it all. They do need adults to calmly tech them there are consequences, and how to mitigate those consequences, along with that mitigation sometimes fails. It's safer sex, not fool proof safe sex. %100 abstinence is never going to happen, stop making that bet, you're jeopardizing the lives of the teens
steveh20, as far as I know it may simply be a part of a health class but sex ed. is in most if not all school systems in America.
Can somebody help me out please, the article seems to suggest that sex education is not taught in all schools in the states (apologies if I have misunderstood something). In England whilst it is accepted that it is the parents responsibilty to teach this, at all schools sex education occurs, and a good thing too it is.
Thanks
Steve
Dear Yes_I_am_a_Jew, if a condom can have a possibility of failure, then how safe can "safe sex" really be? Isn't it better to teach our youth about sex with the biblical view of abstinence until marriage? Specially when STDs are more prevalent among teenagers than any other group. Without doubt the sleazy TV shows have a lot to do with teenage premarital sex and also sex-laden music lyrics in today's hip hop culture.
(Eph 5:3 NASB) - But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;
yes, the problem is you seem to be saying that the problem with pre-marital sex is only about pregnancy and STDs when the real problem is pre-marital sex and those two issues are just some of the negative consequences of pre-marital sex.
yes, when a child or perhaps even a teen is told even though we wish you wouldn't do a certain thing, but chances are you are so when you do please be careful, you have just given that child/teen permission to do that very thing.
Believer, you make it way too easy to criticize you. It seems like you didn't really read through this article before commenting.
The article itself suggests that children whose only exposure to sex is television with shows addressing and discussing only the positive aspects of sex are more likely to be affected by teen pregnancy. The article even goes so far as to recommend parents discussing sex with their children before they reach their teenage years. On those grounds, it's hard to say that educating children about sex and the accompanying dangers thereof (which is the very purpose of sex ed) would be a negative thing for purposes reducing unprotected premarital sex or teenage pregnancy.
Ever think about the fact that teenage pregnancy increases when we don't educate kids about safe sex or make prophylactics freely available? Pair that with provocative shows and you're poised for a lot of teenage mothers.
If this research is valid, then I wonder if children being exposed to sex education at a young age would have the same result, especially since much of the sex education they get is based on the premise they're going to have sex anyway so we better equip them to know what to do when they do?