Most believe teen pregnancy is caused by lack of education or poor choices made by young adults. Others believe it can be caused by parents that are not strict enough or too strict to their child. However, could one of the causes for teen pregnancy be the media? Could popular television shows such as Teen Mom, Sixteen and Pregnant, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and movies such as Juno be one of the causes for the rise of teen pregnancy in 2015? Since 2014, the number of infants born to teen mothers has been 249,067; six years after the popular teen shows were released. In the book Teen Sexuality Opposing Viewpoints, Dr. Jane Brown talks about the media and the internet’s effect on teens. She says, “Sexually inexperienced people may use the media to fill in the gaps in their understanding of how a particular scenario might work out” (41). Most would agree with Brown, since it is nearly impossible for a young adult to turn on the TV and not be faced with a steamy scene. In this day and time, most young people would rather get sexual information from the internet or TV. Some teens feel it is best to get their …show more content…
Brian Houseman posted an article of the same nature on the Gale Opposing View Points Database; saying how he also believes the media is playing a role in teen pregnancy. In his article, “Popular Media Glamorize Teen Pregnancy,” Houseman speaks of how tabloids and the media make teen pregnancy seem like it is the most glorious thing that could happen to a teen. Houseman says, “Shortly after, Time magazine coined the phrase “The Juno Effect” when scores of teen girls began to talk about how much fun it would be to have a baby of their own. Then we heard that a group of seventeen Massachusetts girls formed a pack to get pregnant together. Some of the girls were even disappointed when they found out they did not become pregnant”
16 & Pregnant is a TV show aired on MTV that as the name suggests, focuses on the lives of various teens who are pregnant whilst still in high school; each tells a different story. In these episodes, viewers are able to observe the struggles these teens face as a result of pregnancy during pubescent development. Controversy has been made as a result of the release of this show; this left viewers torn between whether 16 & Pregnant discourages teen pregnancy or shrouds it within curiosity. There is more than sufficient evidence to say that 16 & Pregnant, does in fact discourage teen pregnancy for various reasons. According to the New York Times report, the National Bureau of Economic Research compared Nielsen television ratings to birth records, and concluded that in areas where teens viewed MTV more after the debut of 16 & Pregnant, there was a rapid decline of teen pregnancy rates when compared to other areas that viewed it less frequently although some believe the show glamorizes the subject matter. Some also believe that it encourages the teens to disrespect their parents in every way possible; quite to the contrary, watching 16 & Pregnant is very beneficial to discouraging teen pregnancy and family problems by displaying the hardships these teens face, teaching the importance of completing high school and encouraging viewers to use various contraceptives methods or practice abstinence.
...ers, Kim. Sexual Teens, Sexual Media: Investigating Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexuality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002.
Studies show that within the last seven years there has been a dramatic drop in the number of teen pregnancies. Teen pregnancy is best known as, the act of getting pregnant between the ages of fifteen and nineteen. Teen pregnancy does not come with much of a history. In the past, (mostly in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s) it was common for girls to be married between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and give birth not long after. Some girls were having babies as young as thirteen and fourteen years old! During the times that young girls would bear children and be married so young, college and education was not an important factor. As a young girl you learned how to take care of your house, farm, laundry, crops, animals, husband, and children. The father was your main source of income. Obviously things in our time are very different. Over the years a growing importance for education and making a living on your own has become crucial to many women. It was no longer important to have children so soon, but to learn to be a strong, educated, and independent woman. Even now as time has gone by, the image of being a pregnant teenage girl has been glorified solely by media. It becomes less important to get an education so you can get a good job and be able to raise a child and give them a good life, and more important to get pregnant and get a chance to be worshiped nationally on t.v. for being pregnant and making all of your money through fame.
Watching television programs with a high level of sexual content can shape the patterns of sexual behavior of a teenager. According to Brown (Brown, Greenberg, & Buerkel-Rothfuss, 1993) many teenagers are not able to receive useful information about sex from their parents, this is the reason they usually use the alternative way to find this information through the media. A Kaiser Family research from 1996 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 1996; 1998) shows that a quarter of all the young people have told that they have learned a lot about pregnancy from television shows and 40 percent of them have gotten ideas how to talk about sexual issues. In these modern times media is holding the power to influence the audience and most of all the youngest audience which is developing their view about sex.
Suellen, Katherine, Rebecca Ortiz, and Jane Brown.” Reality Television shows Reveal the Risks of Teen Pregnancy.” Teen Dating. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing viewpoints. Rpt. From “Evaluating the Impact of Mtv’s 16 and Pregnant on Teens Viewers’ Attitudes about Teens Viewers’ Attitudes about Teens Pregnancy.” Science says vol.45.2012. Opposing viewpoints in context Web. 26. Feb. 2014.
Today I will be talking about the way the authors and creators of a television commercial and newspaper article influence us to their opinion by writing the way they do. The topic that I am studying is Teenage Pregnancy. This topic is always going to be in the media for different reasons, and occasionally you hear about a story of a young girl getting pregnant due to un-safe sex. There will always be issues with this subject within society because so many people have different opinions and views of this topic and weather or not it right or wrong.
This world has become immersed in online media from socializing on networking sites to seeking information on search engines. People of all ages have become reliant on online media, but the most engaged users are the younger, more easily impacted generations. Although there are many positive uses for online media, there are many negative uses as well. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for these negative effects to impede upon the perceptions of adolescents. Some countries have been trying to reduce this effect by expelling the inappropriate content of online media ("Influence on Children Media...”). However, in the United States, children are thrown in the waves, expected to stay afloat in this massive sea, but many are being dragged under the surface by the nefarious temptations media creates. Content that is not appropriate for the young, growing minds of children are easily accessible; a myriad of devices may be used to access this material, all at the click of a button. Without adult content filters on online media, adolescents of various ages are exposed to dangerous conceptions. A world of pornography, violence, and public humiliation lay in the user’s fingertips.
The media is one contributor to teen pregnancy. The star of Zoey 101, Jamie Lynn Spears, became pregnant when she was only 16. Parents were shocked to find out that the girl they once thought was a good role model for their young teens was actually not (Teen Pregnancy). Singers like Rihanna, and rappers like Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj sing about extreme sexual acts, and parents allow their teens to listen to the music. Some stars who have been known to dress and dance promiscuously have supported abstinence such as, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Jordan Sparks (Teen Pregnancy). The Jonas Brothers even took virginity pledges in their teens, but with these celebrities promiscuous ways it often contradicts their support (Teen
“In 2012, there were 29.4 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 305,420 babies born to females in this age group” (Hamilton). Teenage pregnancies were once regarded as normal. Women were once expected to be married and have a family at a young age to ensure lifelong stability. In modern times, teenage pregnancy is considered a taboo subject. MTV began a reality television show in 2009 that popularized pregnancy amongst adolescent females. There are many factors that add to the risk of becoming pregnant during adolescent years, but glamorizing the subject has shown to be the top reason.
The problem with teenage pregnancy is it requires intervention from society. This debate is from the perspective of teens, and absent from the medical, ethical, and political views on teen pregnancy. According to Jewell, Tacchi, & Donovan, (2000), teen pregnancy is not a problem for teens themselves but more of a problem for society. The large numbers of unintended pregnancies are among unmarried teens.
They may even be making the trend worse in times to come, by publicizing and even glamorizing the lives of young teen mothers and fathers. In recent years, television shows such as “16 & Pregnant”, ”The Maury Povich Show”, ”Secret Life of the American Teenager”, and “Teen Mom” have each played a role in portraying teenage pregnancy in a positive light. Some may claim that the shows are meant to serve as a way of educating our youth. In the past, teenage pregnancy has been an issue that infrequently was publicized in the media and was almost seen as taboo, and it most certainly wasn’t showcased. Recently, reality television shows with themes surrounding teenage mothers and fathers seem to be all the rage, and as a viewing audience, we are drawn to them. But do these so-called reality shows indeed show the reality of child rearing? I think not. The majority of these types of shows portray a twisted view of reality in that teenage pregnancy is relaxed, joyful, and even fun! Can you imagine the network ratings if they showed the real life of a teen parent, or any parent for that matter? Imagine the mom who has had little-to-no sleep for the past two days, has work or term paper deadlines to meet, and is holding a vomiting child with a temperature of 104°F in her arms, because that’s the only place this little
Other causes of teen pregnancy can be due to the “teen rebellious stage”, and girls that feel like they aren’t getting enough attention and think getting pregnant is the only way to feel important (Kirby 89-94). Most teen girls are asked to drop out in the later stages of pregnancy because they do not to “encourage” other girls. High schools are starting to try to educate girls in their care they not only want to teach them about sex, they want to teach them what to do if they ...
The concept of comprehensive social intervention has been defined as the process of identifying social problems in an attempt to eradicate them. In looking at the broad range of social characteristics and the behavior associated with teen pregnancy, it is obvious that the emphases placed on the effort to recognize and alleviate teen pregnancy can be celebrated through the effectiveness of education, family planning, and abstinence. However, the attempt to analyze and deal with the cause-and-effect relationship with teen pregnancy is an attempt in understanding the social world itself. In 2006, statistics show that there was a significant increase in teen pregnancy after a decade long decrease. The potential for understanding this increase motivates us to look beyond simple explanations for cause-and-effect behavior and to look at what interactions may be occurring between variables that result in specific behaviors or social conditions. What is it that influences behavior? In looking at teen pregnancy in the realm of the family, it is evident that a large number of family structures have evolved, or perhaps devolved, into a variety of combinations which challenge responsible parents to consistently expose their children to the role models and the types of behaviors that are important for their children to emulate as they mature. People are molded by circumstances and experiences, all of which can positively or negatively influence our behavior.
In conclusion teen pregnancy has hard an effect on society, in many ways. Most teen pregnancies were not planned. CFOS says that about 65% of teen pregnancy's were not even discussed with their sexual partners. All of the other percentage of teen pregnancy's were not planned either, but it had been discussed with the teen's sexual partner at some point in time. Most teens began having sex without knowing the consequences. Teenagers need to take responsibility and remember to keep safe, because there are various ways to prevent teen pregnancy, for example abstinence, sex education, and various types of birth control; because these methods are available children should not be brought into this world mistakenly.
“The media may be especially important for young people as they are developing their own sexual beliefs and patterns of behavior and as parents and schools remain reluctant to discuss sexual topics (p.26)”.