Teen Pregnancies Tied To TV.

[MJS]

Sigh....I came across this article and rolled my eyes, because once again, this is a classic case of people trying to put the blame for something on something other than the person making the mistake.

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.

Sorry, but I just don't buy the claim that watching a TV show is going to make someone think getting pregnant is ok. Whats worse, is that its not just limited to TV shows, but music. How many times have we heard about hidden messages in the words, which supposedly caused kids to kill themselves.

Perhaps what really needs to happen, is parent, yes the parents of the kids, need to sit down, talk to their daughters, and make them see the reality from the fantasy.

 

[stickarts]

I do see it as a bad influence but certainly not the sole cause.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

I thought sex caused pregnancies.


I don't understand how you can go from watching something to being pregnant. The choice is still yours to make in engaging in sexual behavior that includes the risk of pregnancy among other things.

This same idea could be said watching sexual situation tv can cause a higher risk of STD's. See I can make up statstics too.

 

[MJS]

Some people tend to think that if their teen watches any tv show, in which there is a man and woman a) in bed, b) hugging, c) kissing, or d) showing any sign of affection, that somehow, its going to make their teen daughter think, "Oh wow!! If people can have sex and still live happily ever after on tv, then I could do the same thing!"

How many of us, when we were kids watched cartoons? I did. I saw the coyote fall off the cliff while in pursuit of the roadrunner, get back up with a ring of stars circling his head, and go right back to chasing him. He got blown up a few times as well, yet right back to the chase. So, little Johnny just may pull out the screen on his bedroom window and jump, thinking he'll be ok. He just may hold a lit firecracker as well.

I was and still am a big fan of horror flicks. Jason, Michael, Freddy...you name it. Yet, I never donned a hockey mask and mass murdered people in my neighborhood either.

Watch an action movie and you see some wild stunts. Yet, it was explained to me that it was just a movie, it was just a cartoon. That if you really jumped off a cliff, chances are you're not getting back up, that its just a movie to scare people, that they're really not 'dead' and if you really did that, the person would really die and I'd be locked up in jail for murder.

Maybe, if people are so paranoid of what may happen, they should move to an island somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Better yet, take the time to sit down with their kids and talk to them.

 

[Kreth]

This just in... "Teen Pregnancy Linked to ****ing, Story at 11"

Some parents just want a scapegoat. It couldn't be the fact that they're using the TV/Radio/Playstation as a babysitter now could it? God forbid some parents have anything to do with their kids...

 

[MA-Caver]

Passing the buck is what they're doing. Remember Columbine was blamed on Doom

 

[Kreth]

Passing the buck is what they're doing. Remember Columbine was blamed on Doom

Yeah, utter ********. Any idiot could tell you that they got the idea from the Matrix series... :uhyeah:

 

[celtic_crippler]

If they were watching TV instead of participating in the other activity, then they wouldn't be pregnant.

Agree: it's passing the buck and laying the responsibility on someone or something other than the one or thing responsible.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I was going add my voice to the chorus -- then I took a second look at the brief news article...

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.

The missing piece for me is pregnancy rates and the level of sexual activity among the two groups. Are some kids using protection more than others, and why? It would also be interesting to know what the 'less pregnant' kids are watching on TV. From the brief article, all we know is that the 'more pregnant' kids are watching a lot of reruns.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I quickly Googled and found this piece from the Washington Post website -- it appears to be the transcript of an online discussion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/11/02/DI2008110202018.html

The interview is with Anita Chandra of the RAND Corp., one of the authors. She discusses the limitations of the study and that the correlation should not be taken as causality. She also offers a number of caveats about what they weren't studying or didn't ask. I found the following questions quite interesting:

Arlington, Va.: Doesn't this study highlight the woeful lack of real, comprehensive sex education in this country?
Anita Chandra: Dear Reader:
Our analysis did not examine the role of sex education--abstinence only or comprehensive- so we do not know the role this education has on the risk of a teen pregnancy. What we can say is that if teens are getting any of their information about sex from television, they are rarely getting discussions of potential outcomes such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

While she may be quite right about the second half of her quote, I find it almost trivializing to study teen sexual behaviour without looking at sex education.

Also this...

Lake Ridge, Va.: I believe that U.S. teen pregnancies are at a modern era low point, while sex on TV is surely at an all-time high. So how can one be the cause of the other?
Rob Stein: It's true that even pregnancies have been falling for many years. That's probably due to a mix of reasons, including all the emphasis on safe sex because of AIDS. But there was some disconcerting data recently that suggested that the teen pregnancy rate may have started to inch up again. Researchers are waiting for another year's worth of data to see if that was just a fluke or the start of a real increase. If so, it would come at a time when some research shows there's been an increase in sexual content on TV.

Chandra herself doesn't address this question that I can see, but I think it's a good question.

 

[Cirdan]

"Watching tv leads to teen pregnancies"

"Video games leads to school shootings"

"Homesexuality leads to beastiality"

*groan* Where do people GET these ideas? It must be some kind of parralell universe where logic and reason are quite nonexistent and nothing happens to be the fault of... yourself.

Teenagers are horny. A lot of them are going to have sex. You have to TALK to them and tell then how to use a ****ing condom. Turning off the tv is NOT going to change that.

 

[Sukerkin]

Pithy last line that went straight to the point Cirdan :tup:. The only elaborative clause I would add is "Teenagers are horny and not good at considering consequences or assessing risk".

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

There are way to many factors involved here to equate tv shows are bad for teens and cause pregnancies. Way to many factors.

Instead parents need to do the uncomfortable and talk about sex with their kids. Parents that do that are well,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, parenting and keeping their kid's informed of what could happen.

In the end it comes down to good parenting and informed teens that will curb teen pregnancies.

 

[punisher73]

Let's take a look at what the study did and did not say. It ONLY said that girls who watch a lot more sex on TV get pregnant more than girls who don't watch as much sex on TV.

It did NOT say that one CAUSES the other. I don't think it is someone trying to blame someone else. I'll spell it out so we can save MILLIONS of tax dollars on these studies.

GARBAGE IN....GARBAGE OUT.

Supereasy to understand. Everything else hinges on that. If you are not filling and teaching your kids with good and quality things it fill be filled with something else (nature abhors a vaccum).

So yes, TV can lead to certain things because that is what is allowed to happen. When there is no intervention beforehand to prevent watching certain programs or to put it into the proper context and educate them. When there was no one there to teach them the value of what they are worth and understand that worth. Where are they going to find how they should act? It's going to come from media and what they see.

Instead of just rolling your eyes and ignoring what studies like this suggest. What are you doing to counteract the garbage that the kids today see everyday? What are you doing with young adults to teach them their value in this world? It's easy to point fingers and say "everyone blames TV, it's the parents fault for not being there. I watched that stuff on TV and I'm okay". So what? If you know that there are no parents in the picture what can YOU do to help so that they grow up "okay" as well?

 

[BrandonLucas]

I really feel like I should reply here, because I was once a teenager myself.

I happened to marry my highschool sweetheart. She is also the only person I've ever really been "involved" with, to put it in the politically correct terms. I was raised that sex is a meaningful act between 2 adults that love on another. I've bolded the term "adults" because this doesn't always correlate with age.

What it all boils down to is that if your parents actually take the time to explain things to you and be a real parent, then you may or may not have the tendencies to have sex at an early age. I say this because teenagers are teenagers, and not all teenagers are the same.

Alot of times, teenagers have sex not because of the way they were or weren't raised by their parents, but because of other factors in their lives, which don't necessarily correlate with television shows.

As I see it, sex takes a little more thought than "Oh, wow, I saw this on As The World Turns, so maybe I should try it!" That makes as much sense as listening to the Billy Mays commercials for Oxydeep and Tony Little's Giselle machine and actually purchasing those products based on the amount of yelling they do in their commercials.

I relate those kind of "researchers" to fortunes from fortune cookies: they rarely have substantial facts to base anything off of, and tell you what you want to hear.

Kids are going to be kids. The best parents can do is actually be a parent. Use common sense as far as what kids should and shouldn't watch on television. Don't use the television as a babysitter. Actually take the time to spend with your child, and not put your child off by buying video games so you can do what you planned to do for the afternoon with no interruptions.

Sorry...I'm off the soapbox now.

 

[tshadowchaser]

As a teen I do not remember watching much TV when having sex. I had my mind and eyes elsewhere.

I can see where some shows might give ideas to teens but their home background, religion, and other things come into account also. Peer pressure comes to mind as one of the big problems these days. Also just exploring their own bodies and the body of their first deep attraction because investigation of the unknown then exploring that which they have found seems to be a high issue.
Then again we have to consider that many just enjoy sex once they have encountered it

 

[Big Don]

How many of us, when we were kids watched cartoons? I did. I saw the coyote fall off the cliff while in pursuit of the roadrunner, get back up with a ring of stars circling his head, and go right back to chasing him. He got blown up a few times as well, yet right back to the chase. So, little Johnny just may pull out the screen on his bedroom window and jump, thinking he'll be ok. He just may hold a lit firecracker as well.

I have never dropped an anvil on anyone, even when they did deserve it.

 

[MJS]

"Watching tv leads to teen pregnancies"

"Video games leads to school shootings"

"Homesexuality leads to beastiality"

*groan* Where do people GET these ideas? It must be some kind of parralell universe where logic and reason are quite nonexistent and nothing happens to be the fault of... yourself.

Teenagers are horny. A lot of them are going to have sex. You have to TALK to them and tell then how to use a ****ing condom. Turning off the tv is NOT going to change that.

Great points, especially the underlined part. IMHO, some people live with blinders on, in some fantasy land, where they think that kids won't drink, won't have sex, etc., and by doing what you said, turning off the tv, or monitoring what they watch, that somehow, someway, their kids will be safe. Sorry, just doesn't work that way. Parents need to talk to their kids, and parents need to understand that if they don't, their kids will learn from another source, and who knows...perhaps that source isn't the best one to learn from.

 

[MJS]

I have never dropped an anvil on anyone, even when they did deserve it.

LOL, me neither.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Like most of you who have posted, I don't really see any point to the study. Perhaps the real problem lies in its media presentation. The Yahoo link sources AP, whose writer chose to use the word, "groundbreaking," in the lead. What should have been more explicit in the lead was the difference between correlation and causality.

What we don't know -- and invariably never learn from media stories about research -- is how it was carried out, who funded it, etc. This is back-page story on slow news day if ever saw one.

Ironically, a story about sex had to be sexified by reporter/editor to make the news.