Children, Media and Sex

Perhaps some common ground in the culture war divide is discernible given that even The New York Times expresses concern with the impact that our sex-saturated media culture has on children and the general failure to invest any resources in studying that impact.  The Times article goes so far as to assert that the rate of teenagers' sexual activity (notably not just teen pregnancy) is "staggering."  One of the only surveys on the question of media impact found that:

[W]atching TV with sexual content artificially aged the children: those who watched more than average behaved sexually as though they were 9 to 17 months older and watched only average amounts. Twelve-year-olds who watched the most behaved sexually like 14- and 15-year-olds who watched the least.

Much (but certainly not all) of the blame lies with parents, given that two-thirds of children 8 to 18 have televisions in their bedrooms.

Rob