TV encourages sexual activity among teenagers - study

Teenagers who watch more sex on television than others are far more likely to engage in sexual activity, according to a new US study.

The study was described as "the strongest evidence yet" that the sexual content of TV programmes encourages adolescents to initiate sexual intercourse and other sexual activities.

Rebecca Collins, a psychologist at the Rand Corp. who headed the study, said that "the impact of television viewing is so large that even a moderate shift in the sexual content of adolescent TV watching could have a substantial effect on their sexual behaviour".

The study was reported in an article entitled Watching Sex on Television Predicts Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Behaviour, carried in the September issue of Paediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Paediatrics.

The researchers questioned 1,792 adolescents aged 12 to 17 about viewing habits and sexual activity, and surveyed them again a year later.

They found that young people who see the most sexual content are twice as likely to have intercourse in the subsequent year as their peers who see the least sexual content. Watching greater amounts of sexual content on television also predicted earlier advancement to other forms of sexual activity.

Sexual talk and sexual behaviour on television appear to have similar effects.

The authors said that reducing the amount of sexual content in entertainment programmes, reducing adolescent exposure to this content, or increasing references to and depictions of possible negative consequences of sexual activity could appreciably delay such activity.