Study Claims Sex on Television Contributes to Teen Pregnancy

There have already been studies suggesting that children who play violent video games or watch violent television programs are more likely to engage in violent behavior in real life. Now, evidence from a Rand research organization study reveals that television programming that depicts racy or explicit sexual behavior by teens may be negatively influencing the sexual behavior of the teens who watch those television shows.

Although the rate of teen pregnancy has fallen sharply in the United States since 1991, it still ranks near the top of other modern, industrialized nations. Roughly 1 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19 become pregnant in the US every year, or roughly 20 percent of the sexually active girls in that age group. It has been proven that young mothers are far more likely to quit school and eventually require public assistance. It is rare that these teenage mothers are in a stable relationship at the time of the pregnancy and the children resulting from these pregnancies are often raised by the single young mother or some conglomeration of her parents and relatives, if they are available.

The problem with sexually explicit content among television shows that depict teenage life is a difficult one to address. The teen characters who are written for these shows are created by adults and the teen characters often have innate understandings of issues that most teens simply do not. So there is no question that a misleading picture of the situation is being created. But it is also difficult to imagine that too many teens out there believe that what they are watching on television is an accurate portrayal of life. The study cites situational comedies as the show type that has the most sexual content, but they are also the shows that take the most liberties with implausible plot scenarios and outrageous behavior that even teens know is simply not feasible in real life.

The study suggested that broadcasters should deal more realistically with the potential negative consequences of sex for teens and that parents restrict their children from viewing the offending programming. Neither of these seems too likely, since "realistic" portrayals of the negative aspects of teen sex aren't going to find much of an audience on prime time television. And many parents are actually viewing the same shows where teens are supposedly finding the negative influences in question, so it's doubtful they will be able to effectively restrict their kids from watching along with them.