Watching Sex on Television Predicts Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Behavior
 

This survey of 1792 adolescents, aged 12 to 17 years of age, found that those that viewed more sexual activity on television, subsequently engaged in more sexual activity in the subsequent year. Notably, exposure to TV that included only talk about sex was associated with the same increase in sexual activity as TV with visual behavior. COMMENT: is there really any doubt that TV affects behaviour? The standard liberal cop-out is that TV shows simply imitate life, not actually change behaviour. This means that TV producers should intentionally promote shows depicting ethical behaviour, and not appeal simply to the shock value of gratuitous violence and irresponsible sex.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.o...ract/114/3/e280

PEDIATRICS Vol. 114 No. 3 September 2004, pp. e280-e289

Rebecca L. Collins, PhD*, Marc N. Elliott, PhD*, Sandra H. Berry, MA*, David E. Kanouse, PhD*, Dale Kunkel, PhD, Sarah B. Hunter, PhD* and Angela Miu, MS*

* RAND, Santa Monica, California
University of California, Santa Barbara, California