I’ve taken some heat on-line for not letting my kids watch TV. We watch a lot of movies, probably two or three new ones a week, but I get Cleanflicks and choose carefully what type of movies my kids watch. Interestingly, my kids don’t complain about it. You’d expect the complaints of “Mary gets to watch TV, why can’t I?” but frankly it never happens. The kids know the only TV I allow is BYU TV (and the occasional sports program), so they don’t ask. And you know what — my kids sure do read a lot and get nearly straight A’s in school, so I must be doing something right. It’s kind of fun to hear them tell their friends they shouldn’t be watching certain types of programs or movies.
Well, now we have a new study that shows that the amount of sex on TV has nearly doubled in seven years.
I quote from the story:
One main concern of legislators is whether the proliferation of sex on TV is contributing to teenage pregnancy. Last year, a Rand Corp. survey of 1,792 adolescents found that teens who watched a lot of sexually suggestive TV shows were almost twice as likely to have sex earlier than teens who didn’t.
And again:
The results from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation also found that the number of sexual scenes in sitcoms, dramas and reality shows nearly doubled since 1998, while depictions of abstinence or “safe sex” were on the wane
Anybody willing to join me in just turning off the TV set at home? How about making sure that you only have one TV set and that it is in a public place so kids can’t watch sexy shows without your knowledge? What do you say?
NOTE: On another thread that discussed this issue, some people who work in television commented that we should not blame the medium. Their point is valid. TV in itself is not evil — it is the stuff that gets put on TV that is evil. The telephone or the internet are not evil, but people put them to evil uses every once in a while. So, I will start watching TV again when the preponderence of programs have no sexual content, no profanity or violence, and are uplifting and positive. That day will come…during the Millennium!