TV and Teen Sexuality
Study links TV to teen sexual activity
“I can watch whatever I want, it doesn’t have an effect on me!”
Riiiiiiggghht.
I said it when I was a teen, and teens (and adults) are still saying it. “Media doesn’t affect the way I live, I know the difference between reality and television.”
Apparently it’s not so much about knowing the difference, but avoiding the influence. We all know TV is fiction (well, most of us). The problem is that fiction (in all forms - books, comics, movies, tv, media, etc.) has a tremendous influence on us. Why? I believe the answer is - identification.
We identify with characters in fiction. Actually, it is the nature of fiction to draw us into the characters of the story as much as possible in order for us to feel the full range of emotion and experience of the primary character(s). In the process of that identification, we have a tendency to transfer the characteristics that are portrayed as desirable in those characters into our own person. That is the power of fiction - and it is greatly underestimated.
Fiction - in large doses - also has a tendency to create an illusion of normality. Specifically, if we see a certain behavior/attitude/characteristic exhibited frequently in tv/movies/novels - we often begin to think that behavior is frequent - or normal - in reality.
In this case, teens see the “cool” characters in tv and movies hopping from one sexual encounter to another with any number of attractive young men/women and they perceive that this is desirable and normal. This perception often causes them to seek to transfer or emulate that behavior in their own lives - because it seems the normal, desirable thing to do.
It shouldn’t take much common sense to figure out that this process applies to other behavior portrayed in contemporary media - using violence as a solution to their problems, using drugs to escape problems, viewing homosexuality and sexual perversion as normal. In fact, hollywood and popular media outlets do realize this - and they use it to progress their own ideas and agendas.
