The front page of today’s Washington Post blares a new and troubling finding, Teen Pregnancies Tied to TV Sex. According to the article:
Teenagers who watch a lot of television featuring flirting, necking, discussion of sex and sex scenes are much more likely than their peers to get pregnant or get a partner pregnant, according to the first study to directly link steamy programming to teen pregnancy.
The study, which tracked more than 700 12-to-17-year-olds for three years, found that those who viewed the most sexual content on TV were about twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who saw the least.
"Watching this kind of sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy," said lead researcher Anita Chandra. "We found a strong association." The study is being published today in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
That claim sounded so improbable to me that I sought out a copy of the paper to read the full study. Does TV watching lead to teen pregnancy? No, and the authors of the study are irresponsible to suggest that it does.
What does the study show? Here’s how the authors of the study, Does Watching Sex on Television Predict Teen Pregnancy, describe their findings:
Data from a national longitudinal survey of teens (12–17 years of age, monitored to 15–20 years of age) were used to assess whether exposure to televised sexual content predicted subsequent pregnancy for girls or responsibility for pregnancy for boys… We measured experience of a teen pregnancy during a 3-year period.
RESULTS. Exposure to sexual content on television predicted teen pregnancy … Teens who were exposed to high levels of television sexual content (90th percentile) were twice as likely to experience a pregnancy in the subsequent 3 years, compared with those with lower levels of exposure (10th percentile).
CONCLUSIONS. This is the first study to demonstrate a prospective link between exposure to sexual content on television and the experience of a pregnancy before the age of 20. Limiting adolescent exposure to the sexual content on television and balancing portrayals of sex in the media with information about possible negative consequences might reduce the risk of teen pregnancy. Parents may be able to mitigate the influence of this sexual content by viewing with their children and discussing these depictions of sex.
The study suffers from so many problems that it is difficult to know where to begin. First of all, the study does not, indeed cannot, show that watching sexual content on TV leads to teen pregnancy. The study only looks at whether there is a correlation between sexual content of TV viewing and subsequent teen pregnancy. As anyone who has studied statistics knows, correlation is not the same thing as causation. Two independent events might appear to be correlated, but that does not mean that one caused the other.
For example, over the past 100 years, recreational use of marijuana among teens has increased dramatically. In the same time period, teen death from infectious disease has decreased equally dramatically. We could draw a graph and perform statistical analyses that show that increased marijuana use is associated with decreased death from infectious disease, but that does not mean that smoking marijuana protects teens from death. Simply demonstrating a correlation does not tell us anything about causation.
Even if the authors had shown a causal relationship between viewing sexual content on television and teen pregnancy, that would not tell us which was cause and which was effect. The authors claimed that viewing sexual content led to pregnancy, but it is equally likely being sexually active led teenagers to prefer sexual content compared to their sexually abstinent peer.
The study suffers from major technical problems. The study was based telephone interviews of teenagers and relied solely on their honesty, accuracy and recall; teenagers are not noted for their honesty, accuracy and recall. Three separate interviews were conducted at predetermined intervals over 3 years. More than ¼ of the participants dropped out of the study, and the authors simply ignored them. However, those who dropped out of the study might have differed in significant ways from those who remained in the study, and their absence may have led to erroneous findings.
Of the 1461 teens who remained in the study, 146 (fully 10%) refused to divulge whether they were sexually active. The authors simply ignored them. Of the remaining 1315 teens, 571 (43%, or almost half) were not sexually active at all. The authors simply ignored them, too. That is a very bizarre way to handle the data. At a minimum, the 571 teens who were not sexually active should have served as a control group for the sexually active group. How much sexual content did the abstinent teenagers watch? Was it the same amount as the sexually active teenagers? We don’t know, although the authors do know and chose to keep that information to themselves.
In the end, the authors looked at the television viewing habits of those teens who did not drop out of the study, were willing to divulge their sexual status, and claimed that they were sexually active. After eliminating those who refused to divulge whether or not they had been involved in a pregnancy, only 718 teens were left of an initial group of 2003 that had started the study. In other words, the authors only looked at 36% of study participants (all of whom were sexually active) and ignored the other 64% (including everyone who was not sexually active).
By deliberately excluding teens who were not sexually active, the authors severely damaged the credibility of their study. Unless they could show that abstinent teens were much less likely to watch sexual content on television, they cannot claim any relationship between television viewing and teen pregnancy. The fact that the authors deliberately left this data out of their study strongly suggests that it does not show that abstinent teens watch less sexual content on television. Indeed, I would not be surprised to find that the authors set out to investigate a connection between watching sexual content and likelihood of sexual activity, but found that there was no relationship at all. Instead, they were reduced to concocting a spurious relationship between sexual content on television and the likelihood of pregnancy among teens who were already sexually active.
Does watching sexual content on television lead to teen pregnancy? We don’t know, and this study certainly does not tell us.
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Comments
"With so many flaws, why would the journal Pediatrics even publish it?"
That speaks to the purpose of scientific journals. Journals do not exist to ratify scientific papers as correct. That's what textbooks are for. Peer review journals ratify scientific papers as worthy of being included in the discussion.
In other words, scientific journals are a filter. They weed out the majority of papers, which cannot meet the basic standards for research, and introduce the remaining papers to the public domain, where they can be discussed, analyzed, rejected or accepted into ongoing scientific inquiry.
Does the paper in question meet the basic standards for research? As you say, "The study suffers from so many problems that it is difficult to know where to begin."
You also say that "Instead, they were reduced to concocting a spurious relationship between sexual content on television and the likelihood of pregnancy among teens who were already sexually active."
So if a scientific paper a) has so many problems it is difficult to enumerate them all and b) it is reasonable to believe that the researchers "concocted a spurious relationship," does such a study meet basic standards for research? We're not talking about a paper that may not be "correct," but a paper that, according to your reading, is undermined at every step by technical and methodological flaws, unorthodox handling of data, confusion between causation and correlation, and possible "concoction" of a bogus conclusion.
If that "meets the basic standards for research" then I guess the bar is set pretty low.
My concern is that when bad studies get published, it gives them a kind of face credibility. So what's going to happen is that in a few days we're going to see 10,000 right-wing blogs carrying the story that the "liberal media" produces programs that encourages sexual activity and resulting pregnancies among teens.
"Does the paper in question meet the basic standards for research? As you say, "The study suffers from so many problems that it is difficult to know where to begin."
Unfortunately, given the number of journals and the incredible pressure to "publish or perish," basic standards are extremely low. Lots of papers make extravagant claims and are not questioned because journal reviewers don't have a good grasp of statistics. Personally, I think that all scientific papers should be vetted by a professional statistician. There'd be a lot fewer journals, and the remaining ones would be a lot thinner, if that happened.
It always irks me when correlation is mistaken for causation, especially when the sample isn't even representative. Plus, in this case, what if the sexually active teens are more likely to seek out TV content that matches their lifestyle, vs. the opposite relationship?
Why? Cause it makes for a good headline and could get some jesus bucks flowing in the form of a few new subscription.
"It always irks me when correlation is mistaken for causation, especially when the sample isn't even representative. Plus, in this case, what if the sexually active teens are more likely to seek out TV content that matches their lifestyle, vs. the opposite relationship?"
Exactly! I'm really surprised that Pediatrics published it, and I expect a lot of letters to the editor about it in future issues.
"Why? Cause it makes for a good headline ..."
You're right and part of the reason why it makes for a good headline is that the authors or the journal often send out a press release with the story already written. The journalist needs to do nothing more than copy it. Amazingly, it probably never even occurs to most reporters to read the actual study.
But they are over-hyping their conclusions, especially the quote "sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy", which makes it sound like a causal association. Its a bad idea to say something that strong (especially to a journalist) based on these data.
Maybe they should have correlated teen pregnancy with watching the christian tv show, 7th Heavan. A so-called "family" show like that seemed to focus on teen sex for about three out of every four episodes as i recall. for as much as they talked about teen sex on that show, you'd think christians are more obsessed with it than the rest of us.
maybe they are?
In other words, the exerpt is only reporting a correlation. Nothing is said or implied about causation, beyond the very tentative "may" and "might" in the last paragraph, which would be equally valid in the other direction (avoiding pregnancy might reduce teens' interest in watching TV shows about sexually active young adults).
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9398/index1.html
An earlier brief claiming more sex activity with sexual content TV http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/2005/RB9068.pdf
One oddity is that there doesn't seem to be a discussion of total TV watching - just sexual content TV. Perhaps buried in the papers themselves.
Is this result consistant with higher teen pregnancy rates in the Bible belt; presumably they watch more Christian TV? Perhaps Joel Olstein causes pregnancy?
Great, bcw made me spit tea all over my monitor.
I read that story this morning and I found it, aside from the questionable conclusions of the study, a poor piece of journalism too.
The story never tried to question the logic of the study or ask an independent scientist to peer review it. But it was loaded with quotes from a variety of "family" organizations, most of which were right-wing, Christian-fundamentalist fronts, none of whom had any qualifications to question the study. All of which had their own ideological views which they used the conclusions of the study to support.
Totally shoddy job. One has to ask the question, if there is more sexual content on TV, doesn't that mean that everyone who watches TV is inevitably seeing more sexual content?
Both the study and Washington Post story are utterly useless. They actually teach us nothing.
If teens or their adult roll models are frequently portrayed smoking cigarettes by the media, isn't it more likely that teens will, in fact, smoke? Isn't that the reason smoking advertisements have been prohibited from TV, why almost no TV program has lead characters who smoke, and why we now rate a film PG-13 or R simply due to the presence of smoking?
I think what the study failed to account for, at least from the little bit of it I have read, is the context of the depiction of sex. If the program shows negative consequences, then it would be much less likely to encourage sexual activity than if it shows no consequences, or if it downplays them. If the program only shows the excitement and thrill of it, it seems reasonable to expect that it would encourage the act on the part of at least some viewers.
"Please refer to an earlier post with some answers to your questions. In this study, we were only focused on teens who were sexually active during our study period because these are the teens who could be at risk for a pregnancy. Earlier RAND research looked at all teens in our study sample (abstinent and not) and showed that watching more televised sexual content was linked to earlier initiation of sexual intercourse.
In our study, we examined the characteristics of teens who dropped out of the study, which we discuss in our limitations. We know that more teens whose parents had higher educational attainment left the study earlier, but we accounted for this in our analysis. "
In other words, no real response at all. You can see the whole discussion here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/11/02/DI2008110202018.html?sid=ST2008110300038&s_pos=list). My comment is second from the end.
Reviewing Dr. Chandra's comments, you can see that she is trying to make the case that they were able to construct a dose response relationship between viewing sexual content on television and teen pregnancy. Yet they completely failed to examine a more fundamental relationship, the association between viewing sexual content on television and teen sexual activity. Over 43% of teens (many of whom viewed sexual content on television) did not even engage in sexual activity. So the authors are attempting to convince us that even thought they could show no relationship between viewing sexual content on television and subsequent sexual activity, we should nonetheless believe that the two are related because those teens who BOTH watched sexual content on television AND were sexually active were more likely to get pregnant than those who did not watch sexual content on television BUT were sexually active.
How is that supposed to work? Is watching sexual content on television supposed to interfere with contraception? Is watching sexual content on television supposed to encourage teenagers not to use contraception? What exactly are they trying to claim here?
"It seems so often the details of a study are much more complicated than the headline."
You're right, and people most people don't have access to the study so they cannot read it and try to figure out if the claims are accurate. Science journalists, though, have no such excuse. Many of them simply copy the press releases that are sent to them, without ever reading the study and without ever ascertaining that the claims of the authors are true.
We depend upon science writers to analyze the studies for us and they really let us down when they pass on the authors' claims verbatim and essentially act as publicists for the authors and the journal.
"But they are over-hyping their conclusions, especially the quote "sexual content on television is a powerful factor in increasing the likelihood of a teen pregnancy", which makes it sound like a causal association."
I agree, but I would go farther. They didn't just over-hype their conclusions, they stated conclusions that were not supported by their own data. They showed nothing.
"Maybe they should have correlated teen pregnancy with watching the christian tv show, 7th Heavan. A so-called "family" show like that seemed to focus on teen sex for about three out of every four episodes as i recall. for as much as they talked about teen sex on that show, you'd think christians are more obsessed with it than the rest of us."
Good point!
Shalom,
ZWrite
Sociological studies like these are generally flawed if for no other reason than it is impossible to have a true "control group" or to determine how these teens might have acted had they watched less TV.
A more intuitive reading of the study's correlation (if indeed there is one) suggests the following to me:
- teens who watch alot of sex on TV most likely have parents who are paying less attention to their activities and/or are more permissive
- are less likely to be involved in extracurricular activities, such as sports, drama or music
- probably perform less well in school
I am not being judgemental, just observant. The teens that I know have very little time for TV, between their school and extracurricular activities. They could well be having sex, for all I know, but I can't imagine it has anything to do with TV.
And teenage violence leads to teen deaths.
Why waste money on study when you can just watch the news.
"So they don't address the question whether sexual-content TV increases sexual activity; the question they really claim to answer is whether sexually active teens who watch TV about sex have more babies - the conclusion would seem to be that TV about sex increases fertility!"
Your comment may have been meant as a humorous observation, but it is true. If they'd showed anything at all, they showed that sexual content increases pregnancy (but not sexual activity) among teens.
"Any posting that points out that correlation is not causation gets mega-Jon love."
That's good to know!
"if there is more sexual content on TV, doesn't that mean that everyone who watches TV is inevitably seeing more sexual content?"
Yes. Another interesting fact that was pointed out to Dr. Chandra on during the internet Q&A is that European television contains more sexual content and more sexually explicit content, yet teen pregnancy rates are lower there. Dr. Chandra responded by saying that they did not look at Europe.
"doesn't it stand to reason that frequent viewing of an activity, any activity, normalizes it in the mind of the viewer?"
But they weren't watching teen pregnancy, they were watching sexual content. If anything, that should have increased the likelihood of teen sexual activity, not the likelihood of pregnancy among teens who were already sexually active.
"Perhaps, the teens are having sex and then watching TV to get tips."
That's possible. It's also possible that teens who are sexually curious or sexually daring are more likely to have sex and to seek it out on television.
"Sociological studies like these are generally flawed if for no other reason than it is impossible to have a true "control group" or to determine how these teens might have acted had they watched less TV."
Absolutely.
In this case, though, they had a built in control group that they chose to ignore: teens who watched sexual content on television but didn't become sexually active. I'd really like to know whether they watched the same amounts of sexual content on TV as their sexually active counterparts.
"Thanks for ripping apart this unscientific study."
Unfortunately, the right wing abstinence proponents have already gotten a hold of this and they aren't going to care whether the study was done properly or not. In short order they will be waving it as "proof" that television content should be censored.
Even before reading your post, my first thought on seeing headlines about this study in the news today was, "Hmm, my guess is that kids who are more interested in having sex are also more interested in watching anything that has to do with sex."
IOW, the assumption is that watching leads to action -- instead of the possibility that action (or at least interest) leads to watching. Assumptions like this are perhaps less of a flaw than the statistical ones you point out, but I find they're incredibly common in these situations when data is presented. Simply inverting the conclusion is often a helpful way to identify how simplistic and/or inaccurate that conclusion may be.
Imagine this headline: "Teens who like to have sex and are irresponsible about birth control also like to watch trashy TV!"
It doesn't have as much of a ring to it, does it? And seems kind of obvious, too.
I would like to see a correlation between the number of erectile-dysfunction ads and sexual activity.
and well, 7th Heaven...it is very Palin-esque, isn't it? But, it's okay, if they get married, I guess.
"Assumptions like this are perhaps less of a flaw than the statistical ones you point out, but I find they're incredibly common in these situations when data is presented. Simply inverting the conclusion is often a helpful way to identify how simplistic and/or inaccurate that conclusion may be.
Imagine this headline: "Teens who like to have sex and are irresponsible about birth control also like to watch trashy TV!"
It doesn't have as much of a ring to it, does it? And seems kind of obvious, too."
I strongly agree.
"I would like to see a correlation between the number of erectile-dysfunction ads and sexual activity."
Watching those ads with kids? Talk about awkward.
Hmm, Steve, with that logic, I am at high risk to begin kidnapping people and mutililating them with power tools and sharp objects, also tearing their throats out with my teeth, b/c I watch a LOT of horror movies.
Correlation, as buckeyedoc points out, flows both ways - the study could just as easily have concluded that teens who are already sexually active seek out tv that portrays sexual activity.
In fact this is probably what is going on in the study - that there is a large body of social science research that shows people are far more likely to seek out information that supports their existing beliefs than to be persuaded by information that runs contrary to their beliefs.
For the researchers to make an accurate statement regarding the correlation in this study, they'd have to demonstrate that teenagers exposed to teenage pregnancy on television are, themselves, more likely to become pregnant as teens. As Amy points out, there is nary a whisper of teen pregnancy and birth in the shows being researched. You can't separate a cause from it's effect and then also draw casual inferences. That won't do, as my inferential stats prof used to say....
Although I don't think the study is well wrought, I do believe that media can and does effect our behaviors. I studied human-computer interaction in graduate school. Children played video games with various levels of action and violence. Afterwards, their behavior was assessed. Constant exposure to violence in video games did see an increase in violence in coping behavior in the children, especially those predisposed to aggressive behavior ( Anderson, C. A. & Bushman, B. J. (2001) Effects of violent games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12, 353-358). We are so much more apt to see that soldiers returning from Iraq might have problems adjusting to a nonviolent and nonthreatening environment, but we don't see how constant exposure to replications of violence and sex will do the same to our children?
Why is this? Well, we're adults with experiences that hopefully matured us in a healthy manner so that we can play a video game and the content doesn't really effect us, or does it? Perhaps another reason, is that this is a huge money making industry, let's not mess with the golden goose. I would bet that most of the people reading this blog will have been in a 7-11 store. I call them "addictions" stores. They do sell milk and some over the counter medicines, but mostly they sell caffeine, cigarettes, candy and alcohol. But 7-11's make most of their money on our addictions. Hence the arguments over what constitutes "junk food" for food stamp and low income nutrition programs.
So, would daily and weekly exposure to stories that promote certain behavior affect young adults and children? Does daily exposure to violence in the home effect children and adults? Does an alcoholic parent affect the lives of the family members? Stories are narratives that show us how others live and influence our lives.
Though the study may have problems, there are other academic studies which have supported that constant exposure to certain media does effect human behavior. Why wouldn't it? We still have Elvis impersonators out there, and people who pay to see them.
"For the researchers to make an accurate statement regarding the correlation in this study, they'd have to demonstrate that teenagers exposed to teenage pregnancy on television are, themselves, more likely to become pregnant as teens."
This story is all over the web and the articles in major publications are followed by comments deriding the claims of the study. Most point out what you just wrote. It is surprising, therefore, that so many journalists simply paraphrased the press release, without giving any thought to whether it is true.
"Though the study may have problems, there are other academic studies which have supported that constant exposure to certain media does effect human behavior."
That's right. It's not that the hypothesis is unreasonable (that viewing sexual content on TV is more likely to lead to teen pregnancy), it's just that the authors never demonstrated a correlation, let alone causation.
Ya know I wonder if that creppy "Pareants Television Council" funded this study? They're ALWAYS trying to pin violence, gangs and teen knock-ups on some TV show.
I grew up watching the Rambo , Godfather and Bond flicks (thanks Dad!) but that doesn't mean that I shot up my high school or my neighborhood!
"I would like to see a correlation between the number of erectile-dysfunction ads and sexual activity."
LMAO! That's priceless! YES!
"It kills me every time I see one of our articles cited in the media, because most of them are worthless."
They get cited in the media because the authors send out press releases, and because journalists quote the press releases without ever reading the articles. That has got to stop.