Adolescents

Adolescents ADOLESCENT DECISION MAKING: IMPLICATIONS FOR PREVENTION PROGRAMS MEDIA INFLUENCES The media — television, radio, movies, music videos — are part of the social environment in which today's young people grow up, and they can contribute to setting social norms. Presenter Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, pointed out that young teenagers spend up to seven hours a day watching television and that older teenagers may spend more than seven hours a day listening to the radio and CDs or watching music videos. There is a tremendous amount of sexual innuendo and sexual activity portrayed in the media, and most of that sexual activity is between unmarried people, according to Brown. In her research, presenter Monique Ward, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, found that 29 percent of interactions between television characters is sexual in nature (Ward, 1995). She pointed out that drinking permeates television, with 70 percent of prime time network shows portraying at least one instance of alcohol consumption. There is also some indication that the portrayal of cigarette smoking is on the increase both in movies and on television (Klein et al., 1993; Terre et al., messages, sexual, television, teenagers, partnership, media, drug, young, social, shows, risks, research, presenter, people, clarkin, ward, videos, spend, prevention, portrayed, pointed, percent, must, music, found, focus, et, director, cigarette, between, al, youngsters, whether, watching