Television and Its Impact on Teenagers - Essay Example

A study by Brown et al. found that regular viewing of sex on television, "accelerates white adolescents' sexual activity and increases their risk of engaging in early sexual intercourse" (1018).

It would be irresponsible to encourage a young teenage girl to have sex in any other setting or format. Yet, it is routinely done on television. The industry must self-regulate television programming and reduce the exposure that young teens have to sexual content. Drugs are another subject that the media inappropriately presents to teenagers, which encourages them to experiment. Often, television portrays drugs in a positive light and fails to show the tragic consequences that accompany drug use.

Teenagers learn which drugs are available, where to get them, and how to use them. Television has essentially become a drug education program. Studies have shown that there has been an increase in movies that portray drug use as a "relatively common and carefree behavior among teen characters in teen-centered films" (Stern 342). Teenagers copy this behavior while assuming they will have the same outcome as the characters in the film. In fact, the media industry could show drug use among teens in a more negative context with a more realistic outcome.

This could lessen teenagers' misguided view of the consequences of using drugs. Sex and drugs are activities that an average teenager may engage in with or without the encouragement of television, but violence is something that most teens intrinsically avoid. Yet, television programming has the power to desensitize a teenager's mind to violence and make it more acceptable. As teens view a barrage of violence against women, society, and acquaintances on television, they begin to view this as normal behavior.

It is commonly accepted that violence, especially in children's television programming, has escalated in recent years, and the results have been disastrous. A large-scale and long-term study reported by Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis found a close association between increased viewing of television violence and the "likelihood of subsequent antisocial behavior, such as threatening aggression, assault or physical fights resulting in injury, and robbery" (703).