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Sex In Mass Media

Samantha Allen
Chandler Crawford
Ese Evbuomwan-Owa
Lindsey Markle
Sex in Mass Media and its Sociological Effects on Teenagers
The average teenager watches television for about 23 hours a week. While watching television, he or she is exposed to many sexual innuendos in the shows that he or she watches. As parents and facilitators are trying to fight against sexual activity at a young age, everything they say is being contradicted by the programming the American youth is watching on a daily basis. How is the message of abstinence ever going to out way the message that sex is an acceptable activity for the younger generations? This is not something new to television for adolescents, but it is something that is getting progressively worse and more acceptable to the general public. Alarmingly, the reality shows that are on television today are infused with unsuitable sexual connotations. Even the commercials use sex as a way to sell their products, even for the simplest of items such as a soft drink. The most unsettling thing about the commercials is that they use sex to advertise for miscellaneous items, but people do not take advantage of them to try to educate the youth about abstinence or to explain contraception measures and protective measures.
Today's youth is spending more time in front of the television in one week than they spend in school. Out of all of the homes in America 98% (Nielsen Media Research, 1998) of them have a television set available for family use. L Goodstein and M. Connelly say that 66% of the children in these households have a television in their bedrooms. Amongst these children most of them watch about a half an hour more television a day than the children without. This is allowing them to watch more television and be exposed to materials children should not encounter. The American academy of pediatrics recommends no more than two hours per day of media exposure. They suggest the best way to lessen their...