Sex in the media/Effect on young people. Whats the Harm?

I have been looking into the amount of sexual content in popular media ( A subjective term I know) and its possible effect on young people. Here is some of the information I have found.

In a US study by the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation called : Generation M: Media in the lives of 8 – 18 year olds it was found that they:
Watch 4 hours of TV a day
Listen to almost 2 hrs of music each day
Use the computer for recreational use 1 hr day
Play video games for almost 1 hr day
Read recreational material almost 1 hr day

SO WHAT, I HEAR YOU SAY??
SO.....WHATS THE HARM?

Of this group access to this media is often in their private bedroom:
68% have tv
54% have own dvd player
50% have video game console
31% have computer
65% have Mp3, Ipod etc

WHATS THE HARM??

In 2005
92% of movies showed sexual content
87% of sitcoms
87% of drama seriers
85% of soap operas
70% of news shows
67% of talk shows
28% of reality tv shows
(Sex on TV, A Kaiser Foundation Report 7398)

WHATS THE HARM?

In 2005, Sex on TV4, a biennial study of sexual content on tv analysed over 1000 hours of content from ALL genres;
Overall 70% of shows included some sexual content averaging 5 sexual episodes per hour.
53% of sexual scenes that incuded intercourse were between couples in an established relationship.
20% was between couples that had met but had no relationship
15% were between couples that had just met
12% the relationship was unclear.
Almost no discussion regarding safer sex, risk, consent: No discussion regarding pain, fear, erectile dysfunction etcetc


WHATS THE HARM?

Research has shown that the exposure to sexuality in the media has been related to adolescent sexual behaviour ( Pardun et al, 2005)

Research has shown that increasing sexual content on on television is related to early sexual initiation in adolescents ( Collins et al 2004)

SO.....WHATS THE HARM? IS THERE ANY HARM?

More - 'Whats Happening to Our Girls'

Just in case my previous post didnt get you interested enough to check this book out of the Shine library ( or buy it yourselves). Here are a few more quotes.

"The number of teen girls who resort to self injury has increased so much that cutting has been labelled the new anorexia....While it is hard to know exactly how many girls are cutting themselves, because THEY DO SO IN SECRET, it is now estimated that 1 in 10 do so"

" Curious girls dont have to venture far to to learn more about self mutilation. There is plenty of material from the net. Here girls can read about the intimate details of celebrity self mutilators from Princess Diana to Courtney Love. If the don't know it already they'll discover how Christina Ricci used to burn herlelf with a cigarette and how Agelina Jolie., also a cutter, wore a shirt with her first husbands name written in her blood to thier wedding. Should girls log on to such sites as self-injury.net they will access to everything...."


WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? LETS ALL GET A BIT MORE KNOWLEDGABLE-LETS STOP THIS STUFF.
Lud