Television and Risk: Do Television Programs and Ads Affect Teens' Behavior?
Teens are bombarded with media messages about risky behaviors, such as drinking, smoking, taking drugs, and having sex. But do such messages actually affect whether teens engage in such behaviors? RAND researchers have been studying the impact of the media on teen behavior for years—particularly, teen drinking and sexual activity.
Advertising Effects on Teen Drinking
Teens can and do begin drinking for a number of reasons, but there is growing evidence, supported by RAND research, that alcohol advertising may be one contributor. Previous RAND work has linked alcohol marketing to drinking among older youth, focusing on alcohol advertising exposure in grade 8.
Recent RAND research has turned to how advertising affects even younger kids, surveying 1,786 South Dakota sixth-graders about their media use and exposure to alcohol marketing and surveying them again one year later about their drinking intentions and behavior.
The results show that advertising effects might start earlier than previously suspected. Even after accounting for other differences between kids with low and high exposure to alcohol advertising, those with more ad exposure were much more likely to drink one year later. Those with the very highest levels of exposure to alcohol television advertisements while in sixth grade are 27 percent more likely to drink in seventh grade, and those with the highest levels of exposure to multiple forms of alcohol marketing 53 percent more likely to drink in seventh grade, compared to sixth graders with the very lowest levels of exposure.
The results indicate a similar pattern for adolescents' intentions to drink. The percentage of sixth graders with high levels of exposure to alcohol television advertisements who say that they intend to drink is 13 percent higher, and 36 percent higher among those with high levels of exposure to multiple forms of alcohol marketing, compared to those with low exposure.
Influence of Television on Teen Sexual Activity
Teens often watch hours of television daily, and television programming is often laced with sexual content. As with drinking, anecdotal evidence suggests that what kids see can influence how they behave, but empirical evidence has been scarce. A series of RAND studies helps to address that gap.
In a national survey of adolescents aged 12 to 17, researchers asked about sexual experiences and TV viewing habits and, one year later, asked again. The survey focused on three kinds of sexual content on TV: actual depictions of sexual behavior (ranging from passionate kissing to intercourse); dialogue about sexual desires and about sex that has happened, including jokes and innuendo about sex; and talk about or behavior showing the risks of sexual activity.
The study suggested that watching TV shows with sexual content seemed to hasten the initiation of teen sexual activity. More surprising, the study also showed that sexual talk on TV had the same association with teens' later sexual behavior as did actual depictions of sex: Teens tended to have sex sooner when they watched TV shows containing more of either.
But the effect of media may also be positive. Using information from the earlier study, which identified a group of kids who watched Friends regularly, a study asked about a particular episode that dealt with a main character's pregnancy, despite the use of a condom. The episode provided specific information about condom-efficacy rates, and the study found that most teens who viewed the episode recalled the show's information, that many teens who watched the episode talked with a parent about condom effectiveness, and that those who did were twice as likely to recall the information.
Taking Action
In combating negative media influence, some efforts from government and industry make sense. As the Friends study shows, encouraging programming portraying sexual risk and safety despite other sexual content can be effective. And there may be a case for stricter regulation of alcohol advertising. But there is also much that can be done closer to home. Encouraging parents to discuss with teens what the teens see on television is valuable.
INTERVIEW |
Striking a Balance: Controlling What Our Kids See and Hear
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Rebecca Collins is a Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND. Trained as a social psychologist, her research examines the determinants and consequences of health risk behavior, including several projects exploring media effects on children's and adolescents' health. She has published numerous studies of sexual and substance use risk among adolescents, young adults, and individuals living with HIV infection. She is a member of the American Psychological Association and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Your research shows that exposure to media might have harmful effects on children. How can we reduce such exposure?
Television is the biggest issue, at least for younger kids and those in their early teens. That's the medium they spend the most time with. And unlike the case with music that's piped into kids' ears through earphones, parents can see what their kids are watching. So, keeping TVs in common rooms and sitting down and watching programming with kids can be a parent's best defense. If parents can't always be around, they can use the V-chip to actually control what kids see. But a lot of parents don't know how to use it—or even whether they have one. Many also don't understand the ratings system it uses. We need research to understand more about these tools, to answer the question of whether motivated parents can use them effectively and, if not, whether other technologies or social supports can be put in place to help. Of course, this also raises the question of whether it should be up to parents to protect their children from media messages that pose a risk.
Which raises the question about the role of regulation?
Regulation is one option deemed appropriate for advertising to children. There are many gaps to be addressed, with ads for alcohol and for things like sugary snacks very prominent in programming kids watch. Still, as we saw with TV regulations for cigarette advertising, it is doable. Of course, following a regulatory pathway with sexual content in programming may be difficult or inappropriate. It's hard to meet constitutional requirements for restricting noncommercial speech.
It's also technically more challenging to do so.
Yes, regulating sexual content does pose some practical challenges. The problem messages aren't limited to explicit sex—it's also the dialogue, joking, and innuendo, which our research shows are just as much of a concern. Identifying and eliminating those kinds of sexual messages would be a huge and difficult task.
What about efforts to work with industry itself?
Enlisting the industry's help to reduce problem portrayals and increase those that might deter risky behavior is another approach. If sex and substance use were shown as having negative consequences, kids' exposure to messages with this content should, theoretically, reduce health risk. It's not the medium—it's the message—and the medium is a double-edged sword. If wielded positively, television could go a long way toward fixing problems stemming from other sources.
So, in some ways, countering the media's influence requires multiple approaches.
At this point, we have so many different media available, and they take up so much of children's lives that we must address the issue on multiple fronts. We don't take one tack in addressing problematic peer and family factors that affect youth—we need to use the same level of effort in combating negative media influences. As parents, we need to better control what our kids watch and see at home. But the industry itself can work to improve the balance of the messages that its programming contains and ensure that ratings help identify problem content. And government should provide guidance and, where appropriate, impose regulations to help protect the health of our kids.
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