The Media, Teens & Sex
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The Media, Teens & Sex
| Mon, 09-24-2007 - 1:42pm |
Kind of spinning off of the 'Gossip Girls' thread here ... this is something I've been mulling about for several months now.
| Mon, 09-24-2007 - 1:42pm |
Kind of spinning off of the 'Gossip Girls' thread here ... this is something I've been mulling about for several months now.
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I don't have any answers for you but I also think the media has a lot to do with it.
Media some, but mostly, I think it's the internet (and some parenting to a certain extent).
When we were younger, we were curious and maybe saw the occasional playboy or other risque magazine or racy movie here and there, usually by accident or with a lot of searching (I had a much older brother and it was pretty much there for the taking...). But our kids
I don't know exactly what role media has on adolescents, but personally I believe it is small.
Since the early 1990s:
Adolescent sexual activity has decreased while condom usage has increased.
Violence and weapons carried on school grounds has decreased.
Alcohol use has decreased.
Smoking has decreased.
Suicide has decreased.
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Things to ponder:
1957 has the highest teen birth rate from 1940-2004.
Shakespeare's Juliet was 13 when she married Romeo.
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I am not convinced that today's teenagers are 'growing up' earlier than previous generations.
I do think the media as a whole, be it TV, magazines, newspaper or internet, has a lot to do with the early sexual knowledge. But it isn't the whole problem. I also agree that part of the problem in some instances is parenting, but not always that either. There are those of us that are careful about what our kids watch, where they go on the internet, what movies they are allowed to see etc. and yet they still know a lot more than I would ever expect.
I guess some of it comes from others at school
I had a conversation with my sister this weekend about this. I think that the media definitely has an impact on WHAT our kids are doing...not so much on what they know per se. I knew basically everything my dds' knew at their age, or perhaps a year later. My mom was very open (too open at times) growing up and we were a large family so there were little secrets, plus, like I said in my other post, I had a much older brother and her left a lot of his smut mags around, and my whole family were avid readers and read every genre known and available so I saw or read it all. Haha.
When I say the internet is, IMO, the biggest reason for the upsurge in information at younger ages, I mean that not only do the kids see and hear and read about things we didn't have access to at 13, but WE the parents also have access to everything. We know more about what our kids are doing, reading, seeing, talking to, etc. My parents, for the most part, were ignorant of the telephone conversations I had with friends. There were no cells, we spoke in person - it was just different. If I want to, I could sign onto my dds' myspace or facebook and know every little conversation she is having and with whom. My girls are adults basically so I don't really do that. But the point is that parents know more about what's going on in their kids lives as well as their friends too!!
I sometimes wonder if it's better that we don't. Because our parents didn't know about every screw up we made, we had to rely on our own resourcefulness and/or friends to figure it out for ourselves. It was part of growing up and learning by error and figuring out difficulties without so much parental involvement
In the original post, it was said that teens hit puberty much sooner now than they did a generation or two ago... that is a medical fact that I've read in several different places.
our parents didn't know about every screw up we made, we had to rely on our own resourcefulness and/or friends to figure it out for ourselves. It was part of growing up and learning by error and figuring out difficulties without so much parental involvement
So much of our perspective and thoughts on whether we think things have improved, gotten worse, escalated or not really depends on our personal starting points in life and our backgrounds and cultural references.
>>> IMO. How can sexual activity go down but condom usage go up? Haha <<<
Sexual activity among adolescents has gone down, but those who choose to be sexually active are doing so with condoms more often.
See: http://cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/yrbs/index.htm
You can find statistics based on states and demographics there.
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